Raclette and Me

Living in a foreign country, I thought I should at least try my hand at cooking the local cuisine.

Sorry folks!  I did not make chocolate.  Some things just need to be prepared by professionals and sold in stores in fancy wrapping.

I have, however, been hard at work with cheese, potatoes, and sausages! Yum!

First, came the sausages.  In Switzerland, sausages come in many makes and models.  It could be that this is also true in the US and I never noticed it before.  But, here I am surprised at all the different shapes, sizes, colors, and fillings.

Real Swiss sausages -- they looked better in real life, trust me!

We eat sausages nearly once a week.  And they are delicious.  Sausages are best eaten with some form of potato.  In Switzerland they like to slice the potatoes (or grate them) and fry them so they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  Easier said than done!  I am getting better at this technique.

Second, I worked on crêpes!  As we are near the border with France, there are lots of opportunities to eat crêpes.  There are whole restaurants that serve nothing but crêpes as well as sidewalk crêpe venders.  I've had both varieties.  Good stuff!

So I thought I'd try my hand at it.  I found a good (easy) recipe, watched a YouTube video, and I was set!

My first few attempts were spongy (too much batter).  Eventually,  I got the hang of it.   I ended up making two kinds: cheese crêpes and ham and cheese crêpes. 

Here comes the tricky part -- flipping the crêpe!

Ta da!  Julia Child would be proud!

My family was really good about this.  Mark actually claimed to like them, but the boys said they were just OK.  I’m not sure this will be a regular menu item at Chez Ami.

Next on the culinary frontier was Raclette.  This really is a Swiss dish.  I don't think this is made anywhere else, and it's the main dish we've come across here that we hadn't even heard of before.

The basic idea behind Raclette is you take Raclette cheese and melt it and pour it over boiled potatoes.  No problem!  Again, I consulted the internet for a recipe and a YouTube video (there were a strangely large number of Raclette “how to” videos). And, to boot, our local grocery store had a whole Raclette isle with the special cheese, meats, and special Raclette potatoes.  They take Raclette very seriously here!

Table-top Raclette maker.

As you can see, to do this properly you need the specially designed Raclette making machine--basically a little table-top, two-tier broiler with special little cooking pans.  Fortunately, our apartment came with a fully equipped Raclette maker.

Making Raclette was easy and pretty fun but very hot, and the food was very rich.  This is clearly a dish that should be made in the dead of winter when the temperatures dip below freezing.  It's Swiss comfort food.

Ami pouring the melted Raclette cheese over boiled potatoes.  Yum!

I think we all liked the Raclette.  Even Christopher, who is not a fan of cheese, said it was OK.  The table-top cooking reminded our guys of a cook-on-the-table  Japanese steakhouse (the kind of place where you sit around a large u-shaped cook area and a chef (sometimes Japanese, sometimes not) cooks your food, does dazzling things with knives, and generally puts on a show).  While fun to cook on our own table, the guys said they still preferred the Japanese steakhouse to Raclette.  Oh, well; it's hard to compete with a flaming onion volcano.

So, I did it!  I cooked the local cuisine!

Where is the fondue, you ask?  Isn't that, after all, the most famous of Swiss dishes?  Quite right.  The problem, however, is that, even though our apartment's kitchen was equipped with a Raclette maker, it didn't come with a fondue pot!  And I have not had the courage to take this on in our everyday pots.  The funny thing is that we have two fondue pots back in Durham.  Maybe we should have packed those instead of the tennis rackets?

Ah, well. Live and learn!


PS.  I realize I am wearing the same outfit in all of these photos.  Cut me some slack! Remember, I only brought four outfits with me!