[Sca-cooks] Raclette (was Re: Irish/Scottish cheese mixup)

[phoenissa at netscape.net]

"Rosine" <rosine at sybercom.net> wrote:

>   Remember the part where her grandfather takes great slabs of cheese and
>roasts them, then lays the cheese on a chunk of bread? In our house, that
>would be "Texas toast" or homemade bread covered with thick slices of cheese
>then oven roasted on the top rack until just starting to bubble and brown.
>
>Sorry about that.
>
>Rosine

That sounds great :-)  Actually, it sounds exactly like raclette.  You take half a wheel of cheese and expose the cut part to the fire (in the old days).  When it gets all bubbly and brown, you scrape it off the wheel and onto your plate, where you eat it with bread, boiled potatoes, and thinly sliced ham (sometimes also salami and other coldcuts)...invariably accompanied by cornichons and tiny pickled onions.  It's totally fabulous; and since it is a traditional dish in France and Switzerland, I imagine that's what Heidi's grandpa was making :-)

Raclette cheese should be available at just about any shop with a good selection of imported cheeses.  I've seen two kinds of machines that are used in modern kitchens in place of the open fire: one holds a half-wheel of cheese in a clamp, and there's a very hot lamp positioned above it which melts the cheese on top.  When the cheese is ready, you swing the lamp out of the way, tilt the clamp forward, and scrape the cheese directly onto your plate.  The other kind is an octagonal or hexagonal machine, and it contains eight or six little nonstick wedge-shaped trays with handles.  The trays are all contained inside this thing, under another electric heat source.  You pull the trays out when the cheese is done; this is very convenient because you get little single servings, and lots of people can eat at once (kind of like an elaborate fondue set).  There's sometimes also a griddle on top of the machine, so you can cook meat or veggies at the same time.  (it gets *really* hot.)  I haven't seen either of these in the States; my parents have one of the octagonal ones, but they brought it back from France.  Then again, some of the fancier kitchen shops like Sur la Table or Williams-Sonoma might carry them...and failing that, just buy a piece of raclette, and taste it both raw and melted; it makes a killer grilled cheese sandwich :-)

Vittoria



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