This is the best cheese fondue I've made. It was made from scratch using lessons from making the old 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:
200g finely ground bacon (or 100g pre diced bacon)
1/2 packet french onion soup (20g of a 40g pack)
2 cups of sour cream (three standard 200ml to 300ml tubs make this easy the precise amount isn't critical)
200g grated or sliced swiss cheese
200g grated or sliced tasty cheddar cheese
Sweet white wine to flavour (fruitwood is awesome for this)
cornflour to thicken
You will also need 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.
Pour the sour cream, soup mix and ground bacon into the microwave bowl. 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.
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 1/3 total volume 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).
note:
The cheese, sour cream and ground bacon can be frozen before starting this recipe, and the soup mix should be stable on the shelf for years. This means you can have the components sitting in your freezer/pantry ready for an emergency dinner party. Remember to always keep some white wine in the fridge just in case :-). Back to recipes HOME