After snow, raclette warms diners
NATICK -- The snow, crunchy underfoot, has followed both rain and sleet. It's messy and freezing outside. "It's perfect weather for raclette," says Corinne Planche, who explains that the dish, made with melted cheese, is eaten mostly in winter, the perfect apres-ski supper. "You're hungry, it's cold outside, and you want something hot that is easy to prepare."
Planche's kitchen table is covered with a colorful cloth from a store in Gruyeres, Switzerland, about an hour's drive from her native Geneva. An electric raclette grill is the centerpiece, along with a platter of sliced cheese and little bowls of tiny French cornichon pickles and wine-marinated pearl onions. Also on hand is a basket of baby Yukon gold potatoes, boiled in their skins, important ingredients in raclette. When the cheese is melted on small metal trays, it will be scraped off (the French verb "racler" means "to scrape") and heaped onto the potatoes.
Traditionally, raclette was made by exposing a quarter- or half-wheel of raclette cheese -- the cheese and the dish itself have the same name -- to an open fire. The cheese is creamy, with a semi-firm texture and a sharp but nutty taste. When the surface melted, it was scraped off onto a plate of boiled potatoes. Cornichons and pickled onions, providing a welcome touch of acidity, and paper-thin slices of dried beef called bresaola or other cured meat are the usual accompaniments.
Where friends once gathered around an open fire or fireplace for raclette, today every Swiss citizen owns an electric grill. Most come with enough trays so guests can easily melt their own. Once the cheese goes onto the tray, which resembles a miniature shovel, and then under the heat element, it emerges melted and bubbling. Planche uses a small wooden scraper to transfer the cheese to the potatoes. The traditional pairing of tender potatoes cushions the assertive melted cheese. Paprika and black pepper are usually sprinkled on top.
Part of the appeal of the dish is the way guests embrace it. "You eat, spend time with friends or family, eat some more, rest, and after a while start up again," says Corinne's husband, Patrick, who comes from Valais in Switzerland. Like fondue (see related story on this page), raclette isn't just dinner, it's an event.
You also get to eat as much or as little as you want. Daughter Eugenie, 7, is finished after two raclettes, preferring to nibble on the bresaola, her favorite part of the meal. "I'm on my seventh," boasts Pierre-Edouard, 12, who manages to add one more raclette to his tally before calling it quits. Valerian, 10, owns up to five. Patrick holds the family record of 22 raclettes, enjoyed leisurely over the course of a few hours, he says, at a little Swiss restaurant in Villars. (This evening he eats about 10 but insists he's not counting.)
The pungent cheese perfumes the Planche home. Patrick Planche says that the house usually smells for a day or two. For that reason, he says, "it's better to eat raclette at your friend's house." Then he helps himself to number 11. Or is it 12?
