It's National Cheese Fondue Day! Luckily for me, one of the national dishes of Switzerland is fondue, so it worked out perfectly. Although the Swiss are known for their chocolate, I decided to go 100% savory for this entry. I wanted to do one thing that was very quintessentially Swiss and one thing that was a little more obscure.
To start the fondue, I had to shred my cheese. I used a mixture of Swiss gruyere and a big chunk of baby swiss from Cabot (because I live in Vermont).
After it's all shredded, you toss it with a few tablespoons of flour. The flour acts as a thickener. After tossing it all together, you wipe your flour covered hands right on your black leggings because you're only going to be seen by your boyfriend and your cat so who cares.
Next, you measure out a cup of wine. Drink that wine, then measure out another cup. The wine is heated through, then mixed with lemon juice. Then, the cheese is added one handful at a time.
It gradually all mixes together until it's thick and gooey. Freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg are added to round out the flavor.
Then, you dip. Purists will say that you should only dip cubes of French bread in Swiss fondue, but I think rules are meant to be expanded upon.
So I included the requisite French bread cubes, but I also added pretzels and crudites aka carrots and celery.
As if that wasn't decadent enough, I also decided to make fastenwähe, which are Swiss breads covered in caraway seeds. They are associated with Lent throughout Switzerland, but are mostly produced in the city of Basel. They start with yeast mixed with room temperature milk and a few tablespoons of flour. That mixture is left to rise and double in size, then it is mixed into more flour, milk, and some salt.
The mixture is kneaded until it comes together into a ball. I used my mixer for the beginning stages, then switched to just my hands to work the flour into it better.
You then mix softened butter into the ball of dough, little by little. This was the hardest part, just because of the intense arm workout it required. I tried using the stand mixer, but it just didn't get all the greasy-ness worked in properly.
Once all the butter is in the dough and it's no longer greasy, it's left to rise for an hour.
It's then turned out onto the counter and separated into 12 more or less equal balls of dough.
Each ball is then flattened into a disc and four holes are cut in a windowpane shape.
They are then brushed with an egg yolk or milk wash and covered in carraway seeds. I actually made a "test" batch yesterday and did all 12 of them with the egg wash, but the recipe I used mentioned you could use a milk wash instead for a crispier crust, so I tried that on 6 of them this time. They came out okay but weren't nice and golden brown like the egg wash ones and I think they lacked the flavor of the egg yolk.
The top 6 in the above picture have the egg yolk wash that make them look darker.
They definitely look a lot better in pictures. The flavor is kind of like a dense buttered roll mixed with a pretzel. They're a bit chewy, a bit crispy, a bit yeasty, and a lot buttery.
Recipes Used: Fondue // Fastenwähe
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