Fond- [of]-ue 💕

Cheap cheese fondue and crudities <3

 Valentine's Day has been and gone but whether you were spending it with a significant other, on your own, or with friends, a fondue can be suprisingly cheap, a romantic centrepiece, and even a way to get folks talking as well as eating together.

Normally a fondue pot is heated over a candle flame or small burner but I thought "Why not adapt this to the SupermarketValueKitchen® ?  The recipe and prep are simple!"  I was lucky enough to have a load of cheese left over plus some budget mozzarella I picked up

Ingredients (for 2)

• 1/2 a bottle of cheap white wine. 
• About 1kg of cheese, grated.  Cheese is not cheap though.  Ideally it should be Emmental or Gruyere, but any hard cheese will work.  I adapted and used some of the leftovers I had from Xmas, not ideal but we'll see how it tastes...
• Red Leicester
•  Mozzarella (which I got in a Reduced salad pack with some sun dried tomatoes) [PIC]
•  Curry Sauce flavour cheddar (don't ask...) [PIC]
• Manchego (probably the nearest I got to hard cheese) [PIC]
•  A dusting of Parmesan for flavour. 
• Half a small onion or a shallot, finely chopped.  I used a couple of chopped scallions, reduced, (as featured in our curry) 
• 1 large tsp cornflour, slaked in some water.  
• Herbs
• Rosemary and floral Boquet Garni type herbs like parsley, thyme, bay and tarragon (I think) work the best to flavour the wine but you shouldn't need much.
• 1 clove of garlic, smashed up with salt but still intact 
• A little vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste

 

Method

Rub your saucepan or fondue pot with the oil and the smashed garlic clove, just enough to season it a little.
Boil the wine, herbs, and chopped onions in the pot until the alcohol's gone and then reduce to a low simmer.  This will take a while depending on whether you're using a fondue set or a saucepan, so pay attention to how it smells.

Filter out the bay leaf or boquet garni if you used one, and gradually whisk in the cornflour.
Now *very slowly* add the grated cheese into the pot and allow to melt, constantly stirring all the while.  DON'T let it burn or sit for too long if you're making this on a stove, as I found out...  Keep the heat REALLY low and slow.  Watch the texture, you want runny but not liquid, and definitley not sticky, as when the sauce cools it'll harden too much.

 To Serve
The whole point of a fondue is that it is a centrepiece and you constantly go back to it to cook your food slightly in the mixture, then come back again, so choose lots of small things.  My favourite things to put in cheese fondue are:
 - Radishes.
 - Green beans.
 - Carrots, cut into batons.
 - Celery sticks with a little salt and chilli / curry powder on them.
 - Any other vegetables you like that eat well raw or slightly cooked - cauliflower, maybe?
 
 - Flatbreads or pittas, warmed and cut into strips.
 - Toasted slices of garlic baguette.
 - New potatoes, boiled

 - Cooked chicken and a dash of hot sauce on the side.
 -  Very rare strips of steak, which can cook through more in the pot if you leave them in.
 - Chorizo or other spicy sausages would work.  A good way to use up leftover salami from Xmas...
 - Sun dried tomatoes.  Maybe you got these in a Reduced salad pack with some mozarella...

You could also do nachos or just breadsticks - everything tastes better in fondue.

*munch*

Mine came out a bit burnt at the bottom, I think I turned the heat up a little too much and the wrong sort of cheese doesn't help, but this was an exceptionally good way to use up a lot of leftover dairy (yes, I know, I'm lucky that was the case, cheese doesn't normally last a day in my home...)  Gooey, fun, and made everything I/we dunked in it taste amazing.


The leftover sauce also makes a very nice Welsh Rarebit mixture if you add a large spoon of English mustard (or two of American/French) and 2 tbsps Worcester sauce to it.  Grab a couple of slices of toasted bread, spread the mixture on top,  put it under the grill for a few minutes and you have some delicious leftovers.

Result <3