Pineapple in the Fondue

Fondue & Table Top Cookbook, Marina Wilson 1974 Australian Universities Press

“Take about half a dozen good friends prepared to dine informally together in leisurely fashion, seat them round a table on which stands a communal cooking pot half-full of gently simmering cheese-and-wine sauce, equip them with crusty cubes of French bread skewered on forks with which they will scoop up delicious mouthfuls of the ambrosial mixture.

Now add a bowl or two of French-dressed green salad to the table and a convivial bottle or two of the same dry white wine you used to make the sauce, and what have you got? Right first time! A fondue party” Marina Wilson.

Basic Fondue

“. . . the traditional cheese fondue, devised, it is said, by thrifty Swiss villagers as a means of utilising cheese grown hard with age by melting it with wine.”

Serves 4; 20 minutes cooking time

1 clove garlic; 2 tspn lemon juice; 3 cups (250g) gruyere cheese, grated; ¼ cup kirsch; ¼ tspn nutmeg; 1 cup hock or Riesling; 2 cups (200g)Swiss cheese, grated; 1 tspn cornflour; ¼ tspn pepper; ¼ tspn paprika

Rub the fondue pot with a garlic clove and then combine the hock or Riesling with the lemon juice and heat slowly. Add the cheese slowly to this mixture and continue stirring until it is boiling slowly. Blend the cornflour with the kirsch and stir this mixture into the cheese. Add the pepper, nutmeg and paprika and cook over a low heat for 3-5 minutes. Serve with French bread.

Rob looks like he's enjoying himself - or perhaps he was being polite!

Chocolate Fondue

Serves 4-6; 10 minutes cooking time.

8oz dark chocolate; ½ cup sugar; 1 cup cream; 3 tblspn Tia Maria; ¼ tspn salt; marshmallows

Melt the chocolate over a low heat, then add the cream, sugar and salt and blend thoroughly. Stir in Tia Maria and serve with marshmallows.

As you can see we used Kahlua instead of Tia Maria (because that was what I had in the cupboard) . . . I'm not sure I'll let Ella pour in the Kahlua next time . . . but it certainly was delicious! Anne