Cheese Fondue

Our personal recipe for cheese fondue. My girlfriend and I love Switzerland. Whenever we’re there, we eat a lot of fondue. Eating it at home is not only delicious, but reminds us of our time there. We bring both the wine and the Raclette du Valais cheese with us from Switzerland for even more authentic Swissness.

The cheese can be frozen until used. The texture might suffer from freezing, but it’ll be melted anyway. The wine can also be frozen. Especially if you don’t drink wine that’s a great way to use it for cooking without having to use up the entire bottle at once. It loses its carbonation when frozen, but it does that anyway during cooking. I’d recommend using an ice cube tray, that way you can portion the wine easily when needed.

It’s somewhat unconventional to add a Dutch cheese to fondue, however, we like how the flavors combine. It’s also a nod to our love for the Netherlands. You can of course experiment with other cheeses and ratios! As a starting point, the most common cheese fondue mixture is moitié-moitié (half-half): half Gruyère and half Vacherin Fribourgeois.

Note: I tagged this as “vegetarian”, but be aware that the cheese may be made with animal rennet.

working time:15 min vegetarian

Servings:
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Heat Wine

• Peel the garlic clove.
• Rub out the interior of a caquelon (a fondue pot) with it.
• Finely chop the clove and put it into the caquelon together with the wine and the starch.
• Heat until boiling while stirring continuuously.

Add Cheese

• Cut the cheese into coarse pieces.
• Add them to the boiling wine mixture.
• Stir until everything is molten and creamy.
• Let the cheese sit and boil for a minute.
• Add pepper to taste.

Serve

• Put the caquelon on a rechaud (a little portable table stove heated with a gas burner, spirit lamp or candle).
• Using fondue forks, dip pieces of bread (or anything else you want really, e.g. potatoes or vegetables) into the cheese.
• Enjoy!