mmm....cheese...
It’s winter time and nothing says winter like hot cheese. I’m not talking fondue – that’s so 70′s and 90′s – I’m talking Raclette.
Raclette is a Swiss cheese (not to be confused with “Swiss cheese”, which is actually Emmenthaler). It’s a somewhat salty and somewhat hard cow’s milk cheese that comes in medium size rounds. It’s name comes from racler, the French word which means “to scrape”. That’s because traditionally, it was set in front of a flame while people would take turns scraping the melted top portion onto their plates and spread the gooey cheese on bread and peppers and tomatoes and meat and pickles or whatever else.
Mmm. Cheese.
Of course these days, we’ve gotten more high tech. Take the Swissmar Raclette Party Grill. It is all coated in teflon non-stick. There are 8 little trays, into which you can plop slices of raclette for melting. The top tray is a warmer you can use to heat up your bread, roast some taters, grill some red pepper chunks, whatever. You can even make crepes on the thing. When you’re ready, you pull a hunk of the top, or pull out your (or your friend’s if you want to be a jerk) little cheese melter and have at it. Dip it, pour it over, mix it with pickles. Just get all cheesy with it.
We think this looks like a good thing to do on a cold winter night.
Just add beer. (or wine)
If you don’t know where to get raclette in your neighborhood, you can get raclette online (this one is made with RAW milk).
