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CHEESE FONDUE

Course Dips & Sauces, Dips & Spreads
Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 6

Ingredients

  • 1 clove garlic halved crosswise
  • 1 1/2 cups dry white wine such as Chasselas or Sauvignon Blanc
  • 1 tbs. cornstarch
  • 1/4 cup Kirsch (optional)
  • 1 lb Gruyere Cheese coarsely grated (2 cups)
  • 1 lb Emmenthaler or Vacherin Fribourgeois cheese coarsely grated (2 cups)
  • 1 piece spreadable cheese Laughing Cow (not the mini-Babybel type, the triangular foil-wrapped soft gooey double-creme type)

What to dip

  • cubes of French bread
  • cubes of apples and pears
  • soft pretzels
  • potatoes Roasted
  • red bell peppers Julienned raw
  • broccoli, florets blanched

Instructions

Equipment needed for a proper Swiss cheese fondue

  • So, what do you need for la fondue? First you need an appropriately shaped pot. The traditional shape is a fairly shallow, rounded ceramic pot with handle, like this one. The critical part is the rounded part, as we'll see later.
  • You also need something to keep the cheese warm. You actually cook the sauce on the stovetop, so you don't need a tabletop burner, though you can use one on a low flame. The ideal is a spirit burner, like this one. The pot is suspended over it on the iron frame.
  • Finally you need fondue forks. Fondue forks are long and thin, perfect for skewering the bread.
  • Emmental and Gruyère are the most commonly used cheeses in a classic fondue, but Appenzeller, Comté, Beaufort, Tête de Moine, and Hoch Ybrig — all relatively low in moisture — also work fine. Not every fondue recipe calls for cornstarch, but we find it keeps the cheese and wine from separating.
  • As an additional treat, when you're almost done eating the fondue, leave a thin coating of cheese on the bottom of the pot. Lower the flame and allow the coating to turn into a brown crust, then break it into pieces and share it with your guests. The crust is considered a delicacy in Switzerland.

INSTRUCTIONS

  • Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the garlic clove. Discard the garlic. (This optional step adds a little extra flavor to the sauce.)
  • Dissolve the cornstarch in the kirsch. Set aside.
  • Put the fondue pot on a medium-heat. Add the wine and cheeses. Heat while stirring, until the cheeses melt. Stirring constantly in a zigzag pattern (not a circular motion) to prevent cheese from balling up, until cheese is just melted and creamy (do not let boil). Add the kirsch and keep stirring until the sauce is smooth and bubbly. This takes about 20 minutes.
  • Now, set up your fondue pot stand and burner and transfer the pot to the stand. The burner flame (or tabletop cooker) should just be hot enough that the sauce stays hot and just sort of seething on the surface. Any hotter and the cheese will burn on the bottom.
  • Take a piece of bread, and spear it firmly on the fork so that the crust is on the outside. You can optionally lightly dip it in kirsch at this stage.
  • Take your speared-bread fork and stir it around in the cheese sauce. Each person should scrape the sides and the bottom of the pot at least once with each go. This prevents the cheese sauce from sticking or burning on the sides. None of that namby-pamby dip-and-go!
  • Here the bread being used to scrape off the cheese bits that stick to the surface of the pot. Now you see why a rounded-sides pot is ideal; a pot with sharp angles is much harder to scrape around properly.
  • If you do insist on dipping other things into the sauce, you will just want to dip those lightly, but still use the bread for that stir-wipe action.
  • (A point of etiquette: Pull the bread off the fork with your teeth, trying not to touch the fork itself with your mouth. And absolutely no double-dipping)
  • As the cheese sauce gets less and less, it will get thicker. It's important to keep stirring-wiping. You may gradually want to lower the flame's intensity if you can too.
  • When there's just a little cheese left in the pot, turn off the heat. Keep scraping off the cheese. If you've done it right, you'll just be left with a small circle of burnt on cheese, which you can carefully pry off. (Note how the pot is scraped almost clean.)
  • The burned bit is considered to be the final treat of a fondue. A generous cook may cut it up and share it, but a more selfish one (cough) will just pop the whole thing in her mouth. So, there you have it. A proper Swiss cheese fondue, eaten the Swiss way

Notes

This amount of sauce will serve 4 people as the main course. If you only intend to have fondue as part of a bigger meal, adjust the amounts accordingly.