Boska Holland Mini Cheese Raclette

[ruadog]

“# Enjoyable for dinners, a quick snack, camping or for a picnic”

I don’t really think that eating cheese from an electric cheese melter qualifies as camping.

[luluk]

Is it just me … or is this just another way of doing fondue … except without the ability to cook meats?

[NightGhost]

From Wikipedia: “Raclette (pronounced /rəˈklɛt/) is both a type of cheese and, informally, a dish featuring this cheese.” (someone linked there earlier)

Additionally, folks have taken to using the term for a variety of melted cheese dishes. Here’s a primer that includes many cheeses that are easy to find in America.

Here’s an entry at practicallyedible.com about the cheese itself. Note that the whopping 45% (and higher!) fat content of the French version makes it one of the most filling foods in the world.

[NightGhost]

@screwjack

I think I may be able to codify and amplify some of the above.

I had never heard of raclette until I spent about half a year in Zurich and was invited to a few home-cooked dinners with Swiss friends.

Fortunately, my inquisitiveness was not met with typical Swiss-German reserve…

Traditional Raclette is, like fondue, a winter-only hearth meal - a half-wheel of gruyere-ish cheese is melted near a fire, and the melted portion is scraped over potatoes. These days you can still buy machines meant for half and quarter wheels (http://www.pourlacuisine.com/im/articles/raclette%204.jpg) but they are generally only used in banquet situations or by dudes like this guy selling at street fairs or near ski areas(http://turosdolci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cheese.jpg).

As it was explained to me, there are slight regional variations on the meal with respect to garnishes. However, as Raclette is a very social meal enjoyed over the holidays with extended family, there is also a strong familial component - if your mom hated gherkins, you probably don’t think of them as required.

Therefore, in general and at risk of mortally offending someone’s mother, I venture to describe a basic Swiss-German raclette meal.

First - on the cheese. The quality and variety of cheese available in Switzerland is legendarily good. When choosing cheese for raclette, the Swiss are, inexplicably, as likely to go for pre-packaged, pre-sliced, hermetically sealed supermarket variety as one of the life-changingly good artisanal choices. Why? Price and convenience. Point is, there is no need to sweat the cheese selection - at the end of the day, how bad can melted cheese taste?

The table is set with small compartmented plates (http://www.raclettecorner.com/product/F66102), forks and knives at each place. Each person is also given their own little raclette dish/pan. There is a plate of pre-sliced raclette cheese, and small bowls of pickled gherkins and onions. There is also generally some sort of meat - often mini-sized veal bratwurst or pork sausages. Yes, I know, here in the states we think bratwurst = pork, but in Switzerland, bratwurst = veal.

There is also a basket of boiled, skin-on waxy potatoes. The basket itself is impossibly quaint, has no obvious analog stateside, and looks like this: (http://www.raclettecorner.com/product/KF-77500).

Raclette, like fondue, is always accompanied by alcohol, generally white fendant wine. Fendant is generally awful, but considered necessary for digestion of all that cheese. Your choice is either wine or Swiss schnapps (Kirsch), which is almost exactly unlike what we think of as schnapps. It tastes like lamp oil with essences of sour cherry and arsenic. Me, I’ll stick with the nasty wine.

In Zurich, there is a long, uncomfortable pre-prandial pause where everyone looks everyone else in the eye, before (finally) the spell is broken by the host, who says “en guete” (which means “have a nice meal”) and the feast begins.

Everyone takes a few garnishes, throws a mini-brat or two on the top of the grill, drops a slice of cheese into the raclette pan and places the pan on the bottom rack of the grill. Polite conversation is made while the meat and cheese cook. Once the cheese bubbles, you take a potato and cut it up on your plate, fetch the raclette pan, scrape the cheese over the potatoes, sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika, and dig in.

It really is a lovely, social, tasty, filling meal. Which makes this little device a real head-scratcher. Raclette for two, in all honesty, smacks of quiet desperation and paralyzing loneliness; like a fully-decked Christmas tree in a old widow’s home. This little machine calls to mind an image of a elderly, childless couple sharing a wordless meal, early on a drizzly Christmas eve, where the most fleeting eye contact would lead to a night of sobbing regret.

Too creepy. That’s why I’ll order two and vow never to eat alone.

[toddmorrison]

My boss is from France and had my girlfriend and I over for a “raclette party” with 6 other people. They had a huge 12 person raclette set. They cooked potatoes and had all kinds of lunch meats.

We sliced open the potatoes, put on whatever meats you want, then poured French raclette cheese on it. Delicious!

I bought one of these from one of the woot sites because my girlfriend loved the party we attended. It’s not as cool or social but makes for a cute date night. I cooked small slices of beef tenderloin on the top and it worked out pretty well (my boss used the top of hers to keep the potatoes warm).

[hcsencsi]

Hopefully this will be followed by some great cheez.

[Malvoe1]

Hopefully this will be followed by some wine or wine-related products.

[parkermc]

It’s probably great at what it does, but, unlike a Foreman grill, this isn’t very versatile, is it? It reminds me of the commercial with the guy showing off his very-extra-special, limited edition chestnut roaster of which he is oh-so-proud.

Shouldn’t this be on Woot? Sell the cheese for it here. And the wine.

/whine lol

[likesstuff]

Every winter French grocery stores stock packages of sliced raclette cheese, which always makes me think of Velveeta (though raclette is pale yellow, not neon orange). It’s become quite popular, probably because it’s easy to do and has most of the kid appeal of fondue but with less mess.