Cheese Fondue

I absolutely love cheese fondue! I like meat fondue too, but something about the taste and the smell of the cheese combined with the alcohol drives me crazy. It's traditional to the Rhone-Alps (and some other) regions of France and to Switzerland.

Cheese Fondue

Ingredients:

1/2 Gruyere, shredded
3 c Emmental/Swiss, shredded
1/2 Comte
1 shot cognac
1/2 c white wine
2 cloves garlic
2 T flour or cornstarch
2 t lemon juice

Method:

Peel the garlic and chop it very finely. Warm the garlic and wine together in a pot you'll use for the fondue (non-stick is best). In a small bowl, mix the flour well with the lemon juice and a bit of the warmed wine until it's smooth. When the wine starts to boil, turn the heat to medium/low and add the shredded cheeses, stirring. When the cheese becomes melty, stir in the flour/starch mixture and continue to stir. It'll help make the mixture smooth. When the mixture is smooth, stir in the cognac. It's ready to serve now.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: You have to keep this warm. If you have some way of suspending your pot over a tea light or two, that works. Traditionally you dip slightly stale cubes of bread or pieces of baked potato into the cheese and eat a piece at a time. Dipping vegetables and apple chunks is also really tasty. You could also pour this as a sauce over asparagus, steamed broccoli, or baked potatoes. In Switzerland, the folk wisdom says that it's bad to drink water with fondue. This is because it supposedly makes the cheese harden in your stomach, leading to a stomach ache. So, you're supposed to drink wine, or hot tea. I've had room temperature water with it without any stomach ache, though.