Saturday Fondue

Last night we had a couple friends over and made fondue (we have to do this every so often or they'll toss us out of Switzerland). I followed the recipe from Le Menu pretty exactly since I hadn't made fondue "from scratch" before.

Here's the recipe, including the cheese mixture we used:
1 clove garlic
800g grated cheese (400g Gruyere mild, 400g Tilsiter rot)
4 tsp cornstarch
1 Tbs lemon juice
350ml white wine (Mont sur Rolle "Le Charmeur" Chasselas)
1 shot glass Kirsch
black pepper
nutmeg

Rub the garlic clove around in the caquelon. Mix the cheese with the cornstarch. Put the caquelon on the stovetop over medium heat. Add the cheese, lemon juice, and wine. Heat, stirring vigorously and frequently, until the cheese melts and everything integrates. Add a grind of black pepper and some nutmeg. Add the kirsch and mix well.
Serve.

gooooooood food

Notes:

1. For bread we used a loaf of Buurebrot (crusty half-white farmer's bread)
2. I'm amazed by the amount of liquid that goes in this, but the viscosity was definitely right. I guess the cornstarch helps hold it all together
3. This quantity is nominally for 4 people, and we did eat it all, but it was a lot of food.
   

I also made a big green salad with frisee and bitter greens; that was a good counter to the richness of the cheese.

We also had a bottle of Pride Mountain Viognier with the apero (mmmmmmmmm apricots) and we drank an Alsatian bubbly (Crémant d'Alsace AC Baron de Schiélé brut) with the fondue. The bubbly was a good pairing.