Raclette can also just be at home

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: it's time for raclette.

Move over cheese fondue, it's time for raclette. In Switzerland and France, they are massively embracing the dish from the Alps with melted mountain cheese as the main ingredient, but here it is much less popular. Incomprehensible, because raclette offers everything you need in winter: comfort, a layer of fat, and coziness.

Raclette is the name of a dry red flora cheese from the Swiss and French mountains that is smeared with a type of moss, a combination of red flora bacteria and old cheese. This creates a culture on the rind that protects the cheese from spoilage. Because the cheese is pressed and the curd is not washed with hot water, you end up with a semi-soft texture that melts very well.

Racler literally means to scrape in French, and during ‘racletten’ you scrape melted cheese onto your plate. Are you a beginner? Then go for the classic raclette cheese, which can be Swiss or French. For a few years, the name of the raclette from the Swiss canton of Valois was protected, but since 2007 that is no longer the case.

Classic way
The raclette, a smoky and regular variant, is traditionally melted in a steel pan and grilled under warm coals. According to Larousse, the cheese tastes best when roasted over a charcoal fire. Then the melted gold goes directly onto the plate, over charcuterie such as cooked and smoked ham or Coppa, pickles, and potatoes boiled in their skins.

Drink something light with it
The dish is quite heavy, and therefore you want to drink something light that lifts the cheese a bit. The Chignin from Savoie is perfect because it is incredibly fresh and dry: just like mountain water. A white Savoie Apremont, a fresh dry and pure wine with subtle aromas of flowers, grass, and lots of minerals, is another nice option.

Want to get started with raclette at home, but don't have an electric raclette machine or other heater? You can also melt the cheese in thin slices in a gourmet pan. Otherwise, you can purchase a professional cheese melter, for example, this one. Eating out is of course also an option. At Bistro des Alpes, a French bistro on Utrechtsedwarsstraat in Amsterdam, you can enjoy the classic Alpine experience. They serve dishes like cheese fondue, tartiflette, and raclette. The cheese and charcuterie for the dishes come directly from farmers in Savoie.

Thanks to: Cheese shop Kef, Bistro des Alpes, Larousse