Savory Monday–Raclette

“Raclette (pronounced re-clette) is both a type of cheese and a Swiss and French dish based on this cheese.”

First off let me tell you about Cindy and Dan.  They are the most awesome people, crazy senses of humour and faithful to the core.  To them we owe learning about this dish. I met Cindy in a half marathon clinic almost 10 years ago and from there Dan met Rob and …

About 7 years ago Cindy and Dan invited us over for dinner.  Not just any dinner, Raclette.  We were told about raclette, but nothing would prepare us for the actual dinner EVENT.  I say event because you must come with your elastic waist pants and your appetite.  As in the definition above, it is a dish about cheese.  Not just any old cheese but the most fowl smelling stuff on the planet.  However, when you take said cheese and you put in on your raclette machine (doesn’t everyone own one); and melt the cheese to an ooey gooey slightly browned goodness, then scrape off the gooey bits and then enjoy.   IKEA!!!

So you’ve probably guessed there is cheese for dinner and traditionally it’s served over steamed potatoes.  Certainly not for the carb free diet, however, we’ve also had it over steamed veggies, really good crusty bread and pretty much anything else you’d like to put melted cheese over.

There are two types of raclette machines.  The European one and the French Canadian one.  Both are fine, but Dan has the traditional European one. It looks like this (his has a lot of miles on it!).

The cheese wheel is placed in the holding clamps and placed under the heating element.  As the cheese melts and bubbles, the server scrapes off the melted layer onto your (insert cheese vehicle here), in our case usually potatoes.

Now that we are in the states and far from our fabulous friends, raclette night has become a favourite memory.  However, while at Trader Joe’s looking for cheese curds (total bust) I found the block of raclette and had to give it a go.  We also don’t have the fancy machine so there might have been some improvisation.  Isn’t there always :)

I just used an oven proof dish, some potatoes and the shredded cheese.  Then I took the hot steamed potatoes and broke them down (not completely mash) and put them into an oven proof casserole dish.  I took the shredded cheese and placed it over top the potatoes.  Then into the oven under the broiler and melted the cheese (the crusty brown bits are the best part!).

The cheese has a very smooth texture and has a saltiness to enhance the potatoes.

The dish is amazing! I knew I was on the money when Rob came into the kitchen and said we needed to open the windows because it stank.  Then he had seconds!

Tonight’s side was served with Indonesian Kababs (not my own, spice pack by Asian Home Gourmet)

Just get passed the initial odor of the cheese and you’ll experience a truly amazing taste sensation.  Thanks Cindy and Dan for introducing us to this awesome dish!

Thanks for looking!

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