All posts tagged: fondue party

Chocolate Fondue

Published by

Part 3 of 3 Unlike cheese fondue, chocolate fondue is a fairly new invention, credited to a Swiss restaurateur Konrad Egli who invented the dish in 1964. To finish off our fondue night last week, we had a chocolate fondue. Unlike cheese fondue, chocolate fondue can be cooked in the fondue pot as it chocolate turns liquid at a much lower temperature than cheese. I cut up some fruit (from our CSA box) and my sister, Joey and her boyfriend, D brought marshmallows and mini cinnamon donuts. These were great skewered and dipped into the melted chocolate. While waiting for the chocolate to melt, we pretended to toast them in front of the crackling fireplace video. The fruit also went down well and was a burst of freshness to cut through the heavier stuff. Chocolate Fondue Tips Joey, our resident baker and chocolate scientist, recommended that we didn’t add cream to the chocolate fondue in case it made the mixture seize up. Seized chocolate is when your smooth, silken chocolate transforms into a grainy, hard …

Cheese Fondue

Published by

Part 2 of 3 One of my winter bucket list tasks was to have a fondue party. Fondue is so retro that it might be cool again. Perhaps once a peasant food, or perhaps not, fondue has been enjoyed by Europeans for hundreds of years. Cold weather and melty cheese go well together and make for a fun night in. I have a love for interactive eating. It’s like entertainment and food rolled into one. Bread is the traditional thing to dip into cheese fondue and we had ciabatta which is a white, porous, Italian bread. We also had blanched broccoli and carrot, tortellini and popcorn chicken. There were also a few nibbles that didn’t require dipping: salami, a can of stuffed green olives, a jar of pitted black olives and a small bowl of pickles. These were great for grazing on while waiting for the fondue to cook. During our cheese fondue, the first dishes to get eaten up were the salami and popcorn chicken. I guess we love meat and cheese. Coco also …

It’s Fon-DO, not Fon-DON’T

Published by

Part 1 of 3 A cold winter night after a clear winter day. Gaudy knitted jumpers. A crackling open fireplace before an inviting wool rug. The smell of wine and cheese. One warm room and a few close friends.  This is how I imagine a traditional fondue party and the inspiration for our fondue party last week. I’m not sure exactly when fondue parties fell out of fashion, sometime in the early 90s? I’ve never had fondue before but melted cheese as the basis of a meal? Hell yeah! The Koala and I rearranged our lounge, downloaded a crackling fireplace video for the TV, put tunes on shuffle, cut up and arranged food in little bowls and waited for our guests to arrive. Coco was the only one in the group that had eaten a fondue before. She had it in Switzerland so I made her my fondue expert (even if her experience was over 10 years ago). For some reason I always thought that the cheese was melted in the fondue pot. But after …