Old sour cream cheese fondue


This used to be the best cheese fondue I've ever had, until i made the new cheese fondue. This is not stringy and heavy like a lot of the fondues that are just melted cheese with extras. It is light and very tasty :-)

You will need:

150g bacon (or pre diced bacon)
1/2 cup minced onions (I find a 1/2 cup of grated onion messy, but ideal)
1 clove of garlic
3 cups of sour cream (three standard 200ml to 300ml tubs make this easy the precise amount isn't critical)
1/2 cups thickened cream
2 cups grated swiss cheese
1/4 cup grated kraft cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of pepper
Sweet white wine to flavour (fruitwood is awesome for this) cornflour to thicken

You will also need frypan and a large microwave bowl that can take the heat of boiling cheese. If you don't have a heat resistant bowl available, you can do all the cooking on the stove, but stir well and be careful not to burn the bottom.

Cook the bacon in the frypan until crispy. Those of you confident of cooking bacon in the microwave may use your preferred method here, but you need to retain the fat for the next step.

Remove the bacon and fat from the frypan, and return two tablespoons of the bacon fat into the frypan. Use this fat to sauté the onion and garlic until soft.

Pour the sour cream and thickened cream into the microwave bowl and stir in the onion and garlic heat in the microwave until the cream begins to reduce (begins to boil and change colour to a darker shade of off white).

Add the grated cheeses and stir in. Heat in the microwave and stir regularly until the mix boils and reduces a little. Crumble the bacon you crisped earlier at this point.

Once the mix is thickened and you are somewhat happy with the flavour, you can remove it from the stove and freeze into ice cube trays to use later if you wish.

If you have frozen fondue from the last step, you will need to heat it back up in the microwave for the next step.

Reheated fondue tends to separate into its oil and water based components and takes a lot of work to recombine. Alcohol happens to be an ideal emulsifier and recombines the oils and water.

Add about half a cup of white wine and mix well. This will thin your fondue, but the flavour is well worth the trouble.

Once the flavour of your fondue is perfect, add cornflour, or your preferred thickening agent.

If you have never used cornflour before, the trick is to mix a table spoon or so with water or the wine, and whisk with a fork until there are no lumps.

Pour the mix slowly into the fondue while stirring well. Pour only enough that the fondue clings pleasingly to a dunked lump of bread or carrot stick.

If the mix becomes too thick, try adding a little more wine to thin it again.

As you add the cornflour, the hot fondue will immediately begin to thicken, but the heat of the fondue will thicken it more. A minute or so in the microwave may help if the fondue has cooled.

Many ordinary foods become amazing foods when dipped in this fondue. for example:

Fresh soft crusty bread, for example french bread (baguettes)
Carrot sticks
Granny smith apples
Cauliflower
Broccoli

These might be good according to your taste:
Fresh asparagus
Celery sticks
All of these should be raw, except the bread which should be fresh.

This recipe makes enough fondue for a small dinner party (4 to 6 people) so double the recipe for more, and freeze some for later if you have less than 4 people

The original recipe this mutated from was "Wonderful ways to prepare FONDUES by Jo Ann Shirley (1979).

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