Making Fondue

When we first started making fondue, we doubled the recipe, which meant we needed a larger pot to prepare the meal. We found that the Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Cocotte spreads the heat evenly. It isn’t as light as a traditional earthenware coquelon, but it has two handles and is easy to move around.

From Le Creuset, we also found a cast iron burner that takes a tin with jelled alcohol. This is used for keeping food warm in catering and is available even in supermarkets.

We use an adaptation of the classic recipe for fondue with a mixture of cheeses. Gruyère, of course, is the base, with half the weight Emmentaler and about two teaspoonfuls of Sap Sago for exceptional flavor.

All are dissolved in a dry white wine with 1/8 cup Luxardo’s Marascino instead of Kirsch and 2 teaspoonfuls of fresh lemon juice.

I’m very excited because I found two perfect wines, one to use when making the fondue and the other to drink with it after it’s finished. The wine I used for cooking is the Corvo Grillo, a dry white from Sicily that is inexpensive enough but also good enough to either drink or use in cooking. It’s a bit on the acidic side, but that works very well with the melting cheese.

The drinking wine with this fondue was from the Cantine Ermes, a co-op in the heart of Sicily’s Belice Valley. It’s called Vento di Mare Moscato and is a lovely, semi-frizzante from a grape ubiquitous in the Mediterranean that has adapted very well to the Sicilian terroir. This is an off-dry effervescent wine that’s nicely aromatic and paired beautifully with the fondue.

Knowing that the flavor of the fondue can only be as good as the cheese quality, I purchase the best available properly aged imported cheeses. The cheese mixture is dredged with a tablespoonful of flour.

The aromatics I use are two pinches of nutmeg, one medium-size fine diced garlic clove, and ground green Malabar pepper. I lightly brown the garlic in one teaspoon of sweet butter at the bottom of the cocotte before adding the wine, instead of just rubbing the pot with a halved garlic clove, as is the regular practice.

I like a good sliced baguette with a firm crust as a dunkable. Unfortunately, in our area, a good baguette is practically impossible to find. There are plenty of “Italian” loaves, but most are limp with a spongy interior. When older than second day, they’re like chewing on cardboard.

So the last time we made fondue, we improvised with cubed, fresh Portuguese hard rolls from a local bakery. We used three rolls cut into one-inch cubes, all with one side of crust. This wasn’t as good as a baguette, but much better than the supermarket’s “Italian” loaves.

There are many other dunkables that can be used with a cheese fondue, but I’m a purist. So I normally only use bread. 

Again, a dish is only as good as the ingredients in it. Using the best fresh ingredients you can find is essential in preparing a great fondue.

Enjoy!