Similarly to Raclette, Cheese fondue is a famous winter meal in France and Switzerland.
Cheese Fondue consists of a melted cheese mix cooked with wine and served in a common pot also called “caquelon”. The pot is kept warm by a small flame below it. A long fork is used to dip a piece of bread into the cheese. Fondue means melted in French, how innovative…
While cheese fondue is as perfect as raclette for “après-ski”, you will love it even in Perth for the following reasons:
1. Cheese fondue is extremely convivial
During a cheese fondue party, people keep dipping their pieces of bread into the fondue pot trying not to interfere with others’ forks and most importantly, not dropping their bread into the melted cheese.
It is a tradition in France to do a dare as a penalty for those that can’t avoid losing a piece of bread in the pot.
A typical dare would be to hop around the room on one foot…
2. Cheese fondue is ideal when hosting friends
Typically from 4 to 8 people depending on your fondue set capacity.
3. Cheese fondue is extremely easy to prepare
The preparation is limited to buying the right ingredients, cooking the cheese with wine, setting the table and serving plates.
Cooking the cheese and wine is the time when most French people would think about the comedy “Les bronzés font du ski (1979)” where Marius introduces dental floss in the preparation which results in a not so funny joke! This is not to be recommended…
4. Cheese fondue is sufficient to itself
When you consider the base ingredients of fondue being cheese, wine and bread, it is easy to understand that it is a pretty rich dish (to say the least) and people tend to eat more than usual.
Eating with moderation is the best advice we can give as fondue sickness is not a pleasant experience…
No need for an entrée or fancy dessert and obviously no cheese platter… Something light such as a fruit salad or a macaron is appropriate.
Following cheese fondue by a chocolate fondue is the kind of challenge you would only take up once in a lifetime…
5 reasons why you should eat Cheese fondue
& where to find in Perth
5. Gluten free and vegetarian
Cheese fondue is gluten free as long as you get gluten free bread and will give vegetarians' taste buds a treat.
What you need
for four persons without wine to drink:
300g of Comté
300g of Beaufort
300g of Emmental or Tome de Savoie
500ml of white wine
1 garlic clove
a coffee spoon of maize, cornflour or bicarbonate
a shot of kirsch (optional)
40g of dried porcini (optional)
a pince of paprika (optional)
A zest of lemon (optional)
Cheese
The French did not invent fondue, our Swiss friends did.
But like many things in French cuisine, the recipe made it through the Alps and the French modified it.
In Switzerland, the most common cheese fondue would probably be with Gruyère and Emmental.
In France, the traditional cheese fondue is the fondue Savoyarde which is the one we describe below.
Another interesting variant worth noticing is the fondue Auvergnate with Saint-Nectaire, Cantal and Fourme d'Ambert (and this is not only because the writer of this article is from that particular French region…).
Here are the places in Perth where you can find Comté, Beaufort and Emmental or Tome de Savoie:
The cooking wine
As the wine is cooked with the fondue cheese, it would be a waste to use a high quality wine. Any dry wine (i.e. not sweet) would probably be fine as long as they do not carry too many chemicals such as sulphite…
A cheap Sauvignon Blanc would be our choice.
The white wine helps the fondue stability thanks to an acid it carries. A zest of lemon or a coffee spoon of mustard can also be added.
Note that most of the alcohol content will evaporate. In France, kids eat fondue with adults.
Yes, French kids are quirky but all French are and this is probably not due to wine residue they ingurgitate in cheese fondue.
If you can't have alcohol because of convictions or religious reasons, this recipe is likely not to be for you.
The bread
You can use the bread you like as long as it does not have a soft crust and too much crumb. All pieces you cut must have some crust, otherwise, it will not keep attached to the fork while you dip… We would typically use a French baguette. Check our bakery page to know where to find it.
Raw carrot sticks, celery, slices of salami or prosciutto, cornichons, mushrooms and more can also be dipped but those would not be typical of a French fondue.
last updated 15-Feb-2017
Various additional ingredients (optional)
Various additional ingredients can be offered. The most typical would be ground black pepper, small pickled onions and gherkins (cornichons), tomato, onion, mushrooms… Quail eggs (oeufs de caille) can also be added.
Fondue set
Most common cheese fondue sets are made of ceramic or pottery. They typically have a flat bottom and a large opening for obvious reasons.
While most fondue sets will be suitable for cheese fondue, make sure to select one that has an adjustable alcohol or gel fuel burner as you will need to change adapt the strength of the heat as the pot empties itself.
Fondue pots are quite common on wedding lists and can be found in a number of retail shops. We have listed below some examples for your convenience:
Preparing fondue is dead easy
The only real trick to know is that you shall cook the cheese with low heat. If you make it too hot, the cheese will burn at the bottom of your pan and you will struggle to clean it afterwards.
First, remove the cheese crust. Ideally, the cheese will be grated. If you can't easily do that, cut it in small pieces.
Coat the cheese with maize or corn flour. This will help the cheese mix with the wine.
Cut a garlic clove and wipe the pan with it. This will add some light but essential garlic flavour to the fondue.
Pour the wine in the pan and heat it.
When hot, make sure that the heat is put to low, add the cheese to the wine a handful at a time and stir it until you get a good melt.
At the end, you can add a squish of lemon which helps keeping the fondue together, a coffee spoon of mustard and the shot of kirsch for the taste (optional).
You normally don’t need any salt and pepper to be added but it all depends on the cheese or bread you used.
A tasty variant is to add porcini to the recipe.
As fresh porcini is a bit of a challenge to find or afford in Perth, we recommend using dried porcini.
Before shredding the cheese, hydrate the mushrooms as explained in our mushroom page.
Remove the hydrated mushroom and mix the water with the wine and heat it.
Follow the rest of the recipe as explained above.
Just before serving, add the mushroom to the fondue.
This video will sum it all up going through the basics. Enjoy!
Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to submit any suggestion to improve this article.
Shopstyle, various choices for fondue set and fondue pot searches
How to serve
Once the cheese and wine are cooked, transfer it to the fondue pot and light the burner.
You will need to find the right adjustment to make sure that the cheese does not burn and that it doesn’t thickened either.
You may use a wooden spoon on a regular basis to mix it if necessary.
Everyone will firmly attach a piece of bread to its fork with the crust to the outside and dip the bread into the cheese.
When dipping, it is good practice to go around the pot and the bottom to keep stirring the cheese.
For obvious sanitary reasons, the bread shall be pulled off the fork with teeth, not with the mouth…
Double dipping is also not to be considered.
It is a habit in some French regions to add an egg to the mix and the very end when there is not enough cheese to dip, and if diners still have some room left…
White wine is the beverage of choice to accompany cheese fondue.
For those you want or have to avoid alcohol (don’t drive and drink!), black tea is a good option.
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