Diots au vin blanc de Savoie, with polenta

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 1 hour.

Ingredients

For the diots

• 8 plain or smoked Savoie diots
• 50 g butter
• 50 cl Jongieux AOC white wine
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 sprig thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 shallots, chopped

For the polenta

• 200 g polenta
• 1 L water
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes
• 20 cl single cream
• 100 g Beaufort AOP, grated

Method

1. Brown the diots in butter, then set aside.
2. Soften the onion and shallot in the remaining butter, dust with flour, and deglaze with the wine.
3. Return the diots with the thyme and bay leaves and simmer gently, 40 to 50 minutes, topping up with wine or water as needed.
4. For the polenta: bring the water and bouillon to the boil, whisk in the polenta, and finish by folding through the cream and Beaufort. Combine with the diots and finish under the grill.

What a modern chef changes

A sous vide poach for consistency, and the polenta rebuilt as a set base rather than a wet accompaniment

Rungs 1 and 4

Method

1. Poach the diots sous vide at 85°C for 45 minutes in a bag with a reduced portion of the Jongieux wine, matching the traditional gentle simmer's temperature range exactly, then finish by browning them hard and briefly in a dry pan just before service. This removes the risk of the stovetop simmer running too hot and toughening the sausage, the same logic rung 4 applies to distinguishing diots from longeole, while adding back the colour and Maillard character the sous vide bath itself cannot build.
2. Set the finished polenta in a shallow tray and chill it, then cut it into blocks and pan-fry until crisp on two sides, rather than serving it loose from the pot. This is the same move the traditional "polenta savoyarde" pan-fried version already makes, applied here to the richer, cheese-and-cream diots polenta, and gives the dish a genuine textural contrast the wet gratin version lacks.
3. Reduce the diots' own braising liquid separately to a light glaze, spooned over at the pass rather than served as a thin poaching broth, so the sauce reads as considered rather than incidental.