A traditional raclette is most often a simple meal in and of itself that makes it easy to enjoy as everyone cooks up their own selections to their liking. Often accompanied by dried meats, such as prosciutto or salami, baguettes, nuts, cut up veggies, gherkins and pickled onions, it can stand alone. Because, at New Year’s, we add a raclette to our traditional fondue dinner, we usually try to keep it simpler, by doing the boiled potatoes (this year we’ll be using baby purple potatoes) and cheese only. Quite often though, we’ll find some of the meats cut up for fondue making their way onto the raclette grill. Most raclette grills come with a cast aluminum grill plate, but last Christmas I received a marble slab for the grill as a gift and I LOVE the effect. If you get the chance, try it!!!
- 2 lbs baby potatoes
- 1 ½ lbs raclette cheese, sliced
Scrub the potatoes and boil them unpeeled until tender, then slice. Because I usually use baby potatoes, I only slice them in half crosswise, but if you’re using larger potatoes, then slice them about a quarter inch thick. Into one of the raclette “pans”, place a slice of cheese and slide it under the grill to become all melty and bubbly, then scrape it onto the potatoes. Sometimes, we’ll put the potatoes into the pan and then top with the cheese to let it all grill together, sometimes we’ll grill the cooked potatoes on the raclette before scraping the melted cheese onto them. Season with a grinding of fresh pepper and enjoy. Tip: Experiment with other types of cheeses such as Tilsit, Grey Alp Cheese, Appenzeller & Emmental. We’ve also used Cheddar, Friulano and Mozzarella to great success. The limits really are your own imagination and tastes.