An avid art collector, chef Gerard Vie puts a lot of thought in aesthetics when creating a recipe and constructing a gourmet dish. This recipe for Potato Pancake with Bacon and Caviar is a good example of his fine sensibility and elegant style. Like an artist painting a canvas, Chef Vie arranges every ingredient on the plate to achieve a balanced and beautifully composed dish.

In this recipe, long thin strips of smoked bacon are layered one on top of the other to make an outer crust; thin chips of potatoes are lined inside to make a galette or pancake. The method used is similar to making apple tart but instead of pastry, bacon is used as crust and instead of filling the pie with slices of apples, it is filled with thinly sliced potato chips. Depending on your preference, you can also substitute smoked bacon for smoked duck, which also goes terrifically well with caviar and cream. Just slice the smoked duck into long thin strips with the help of a cutting machine to get evenly cut meat. If cutting without a machine, place the meat in the refrigerator or freezer and allow it to harden before cutting with a very sharp knife.

Chef Vie personally likes to use Sevruga caviar for this particular recipe for its smaller eggs and finer grains that blend well with the cream sauce. This is a less expensive kind of caviar compared to the more extravagant Beluga and Ossetra varieties but still superior in quality and taste.

When mixing the sauce and caviar, remember two important points: Use a spoon of stainless steel, horn, or wood. Anything else will modify the flavor, making it bitter. Also, when mixing the caviar with the sauce, the latter must be lukewarm. If the sauce is too warm, the caviar will gelatinize and become plastic-like.

Ingredients
15 thin slices of smoked pork breast bacon or smoked duck fillet
4 potatoes
1 onion
butter
For the sauce:
0.44 oz. caviar (sevruga)
white wine (Chardonnay)
butter
cream shallot

Remove the skin of the potatoes and slice them thinly using a mandolin. Mince the onion and cook in butter. Melt some butter in a saucepan and add the potato slices. Cook for about 3 to 4 minutes.

Cut very finely the bacon or duck with a machine or sharp knife. Lay the bacon slices across a round mold, allowing about half of each piece to overlap around the edges of the mold.

Drain the potatoes and place them on a serving dish. Put a layer of potatoes in the mold. Continue to arrange them, as you would when making an apple pie. Place the cooked onion in the middle, then add another layer of potatoes. Cover the potato cake with the bacon slices. Place in the oven for about 20 minutes.

To prepare the sauce, boil down the white wine with the shallots. Add more wine. This will take about 2 to 3 minutes. Add equal parts of butter and cream to the saucepan and boil down again. Remove the sauce from the stove and quickly mix the scoop of caviar in the sauce and stir gently. Place the sauce directly onto a serving plate, using a stainless steel, horn, or wooden spoon. Place the galette on top of this and decorate with chervil. Add a small scoop of caviar and season with a small amount of fresh pepper.