Cheese and Chinese fondue Recipe

[simonboucher3]

Continuing the discussion from Fondue kit Transport Box:

For the Chinese fondue, Usually, it is made from beef and/ or chicken broth + Red Wine. What I recommend is, after the meal, sieve the broth resulting from the meal and freeze in a plastic container the result. Reuse has the basis broth for the next one, and the next one. Since it is heated each meal, it is sieved and it is frozen between, it is not dangerous, and the sugar and tastes from the meat used in each meal add to the taste of the broth, increasing its complexity. Also, it reduces lost.

For Cheese fondue, I have been experimenting with the recipe for the past… 12-13 years. I have tried and succeeded at a lactose-free fondue, beer-based fondue, Canadian only fondue and -40C outdoor fondue. It was given to my parents from a Zurich Swiss alpine guard (yes very cliché). The cheeses can be changed, but keep to similar kind.

Ingredient:

• 200-300g of cheese/person 1/2 Gruyère, 1/2 Emmental, cut in cubes.
• 2 garlic clove, cut lengthwise in half
• 1/3-1/4 of White wine, dry preferably (Riesling, Fendant; From Alsace, Germany, Swiss, no Fruity or Citrus taste)
• around 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
• around 1 tablespoon/ 25ml of an Eau-de-vie (Kirsh, Poire William, Calvados, Sortilège) avoid too different taste (Avoid Grand Marinier and Jägermeister)
• A tip of knife worth of baking soda (Thats the main secret)

Recipe:

1. Take the garlic’s half cloves and rub the cut face on the cauldron. After doing it let the garlic in the cauldron.
2. Add the cheese to the cauldron. Spread them evenly (approximate) on the surface.
3. Add the wine until about half the cheese is covered (be cheap, better to have less than too much)
4. Heat to mid, mid-high on a stove.
5. While the cheese is melting, stir with a wooden spoon in 1 direction. Clockwise or anticlockwise. The direction has no importance, but you should keep it for the whole meal, because turning the same direction, keeps from adding too much air to the mix and prevent the cheese from becoming fibrous.
6. While the cheese is melting, prepare a mixture of the cornstarch and the Eau de vie. Stir it together in a small vessel until a liquidy paste is made. Keep apart.
7. When the cheese is melted, add the mixture and stir it in. It will make rise the cheese and thicken it.
8. When it has finished rising and is ready to serve, just before serving, add the baking soda and stir vigorously. It will bubble and react. The baking soda is reacting with the acidity of the meal, reducing its heaviness and by bubbling gas, it fluffs the fondue.

If you have no Eau-de-vie, you can change it with the wine you used. It only adds a small taste and isn’t mandatory. It is used to dilute the cornstarch so it can be stired in.

The approximate quantity of bread per/ person is a 6-8 inch of french baguette or ciabatta. Better to buy it the previous day or a harder version, because it will better keep form when dipped in the cheese.

Edit: Accompaniment
A good accompaniment to the cheese fondue is delicatessen’meat. Good recommendations are Grison beef, Prosciutto and Speck. I am not sure the right quantity per person.

[Xabbess]

This is lovely. Thank you. Haven’t made fondue in years. I have a very old ceramic pot that my parents brought to me from Switzerland, as well as a recipe book. You’re making me hungry!

[simonboucher3]

For me, my family has a close connection to Switzerland and so for us, cheese fondue was a relatively usual meal. And buying the cheese at Costco and freezing it meant that for not that much we could make the meal in about 20-30 minutes. The only item we needed to plan for was the bread and the wine.

[Xabbess]

My grandparents on my dad’s side were from Switzerland, so I also have it in my blood.

[ChristyM]

We love fondue… we have it every New Year’s Eve with friends. This year they gifted us a bottle of kirsch as we’d finally finished the bottle they’d been bringing for a decade or so. When they aren’t here, we skip it.

I was wondering what you meant by Chinese fondue! We just call that meat fondue, I guess. Fun fact… In China, it’s not red wine. The broth (hot pot) is made of blood. When I went with a Chinese host (in China), she asked if I could guess what our neighbors were eating. I couldn’t, so she explained that it was believed that you took on traits of whatever meat/animal you were eating… and then told me that the guys next to us were obviously quite concerned with their virility!

Thanks for the recipe. Ours is very similar, but we’ve never used baking soda and I hadn’t heard about stirring in one direction. Will have to try both next time.

[simonboucher3]

It is how it is called here. I had Mongolian fondue (using a communal pot and sieve), Bourguignon fondue (hot oil), and Vigneron fondue (pure red wine). And all of all of them, cheese and Chinese are still my preferred. I would try the blood one.

[ChristyM]

Cheese is my fave. And then chocolate. I don’t love the broth versions, although I’d eat them. I think I just prefer meat cooked other ways. The blood one I had was very, very spicey, but I enjoyed it.

[arh2]

I’ll never forget my first ever cheese fondue experience… my best friend at the time went to boarding school in Switzerland. When I went to visit, we ended up having lunch one day in the town of Gruyere and of course having the cheese fondue while watching the annual fire company parade going through main street with, among other things, a truck from the 1920s. Cheese fondue is still a favorite meal, but that first time will forever taste the best - and that is now 40 years ago or so…

[simonboucher3]

By the way, if you are tempted to go with the prepackage box of cheese fondue, or has I call it, cardboard fondue, don’t. If it is the only kind of cheese fondue you ever ate, don’t judge it based on that experience, it is not the same thing. And doing it yourself, from raw ingredient, will taste way better, for not that much more (never did the cost analysis).

[Xabbess]

I’ve never bought ‘cardboard’ fondue cheese, nor have I ever had the desire to do that. I’ve always really enjoyed the entire experience of fondue…from beginning to end. I’m sure the prepackaged stuff would suffer my harsh judgement.