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Raclette for One

Here’s the confession: I’ve never had proper raclette. When I was in Switzerland I ate fondue, but I somehow missed raclette. And when I was invited to a raclette party in Sun Valley many Christmases ago, I stayed home to talk on the phone to my then-boyfriend. It was our first time apart after having just fallen swoonily in love.

In hindsight, this may have been a mistake, because it’s taken me many years to come back to raclette.

I’ve known that raclette is a type of cheese, it’s also a dish of melty cheese served with savory accompaniments. Tradition has it that raclette was eaten by mountain cow-herders, who took cheese with them and would melt it over their campfires. This sounds terribly romantic and Heidi-esque and appealing, but it wasn’t until I saw the small piece of raclette cheese in the odds and ends basket at Central Market in Seattle that I did anything about it.

Someday I will chronicle my love affair with Central Market, but let’s just say that a cheese section with an odds and ends basket is a wonderful thing—little bits of cheese that allow you to experiment with minimal risk and expense. I think every cheese section should have one.

So I bought the small bit of raclette cheese home with me, and I rustled up the traditional accompaniments—boiled potatoes, cornichons, and somewhere I remember a mention of sour cherries, though I cannot now find that source.

Then I went on the internet, where I found loads of videos of people—Swiss and otherwise—enjoying this melty cheese dish. Most of them had electric raclette grillsdesigned to melt the cheese for you. Some of them have a flat top that allows you to cook meat and vegetables as well. My favorite video was this one, a stall selling melty cheese scraped off a huge round of raclette and dumped on potatoes (from Borough Market in London, ironically), although this advertising video also makes me smile. I think that’s Heidi’s grandfather in there.

I have no raclette maker. And while traditional raclette was melted in front of a fire, which sounds unbelieveable rustic and the perfect thing to do on a dark, snowy night, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make a fire just so I could eat dinner. Instead I did what any urban dweller might under the circumstances: I put it in a pan and stuck it in the toaster oven.

And it worked fine. The cheese was gorgeous—a mild, buttery flavor with a bit of tang that went perfectly with the potatoes, cornichons, cherries. I added some pickled zucchini, a la Zuni Café, and a little smear of mustard, which cut the richness of the cheese nicely. Brussels sprouts would be lovely here as well, or perhaps mushrooms.

If I closed my eyes for a moment, I could almost imagine a snowy night with a fire in some mountain lodge in Switzerland or France. It’s taken me a while to come around to raclette, but I think this may be the start of a beautiful friendship.

The raclette cheese was so lovely, I then tossed in a bit of gruyère, which was nice as well. I’m starting to think about a raclette dinner party on a cold dark evening, perhaps with a mix of cheeses. There’s some definite possibility here. Pull up a chair and pour some wine. Winter just got a lot cozier around here.

RACLETTE

This is hardly a recipe, but for those of you who like lists:

Decent sized chunk of raclette cheese, depending on how many you are serving

Potatoes (one large or two small-medium per person), boiled [A commenter has graciously enlightened me that no Swiss person would cut their potatoes before boiling; it seems they are traditionally boiled whole and cut at the table.]

Pickled cornichons

Sour or other preserved cherries

Additional pickles, as desired (pickled onions are apparently traditional)

For meat-lovers, prosciutto is commonly served

Other vegetables, according to desire: cooked Brussels sprouts, mushroom, peppers, tomatoes

Melt the cheese under a broiler or raclette pan—or in front of a fire if you’re feeling rustic. Serve with vegetables, pickles, meat. A nice white wine and a salad would not be amiss either.