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Raclette Anywhere, Anytime

Face it. We’re approaching that time of year when everything can start to seem exhausting. We have the election behind us, but that took at least a little bit out of everyone. Now comes Thanksgiving. Then Christmas. And then celebrating the New Year. Sure, there will be fun involved. But it also means getting everything done anyway at work, all that traveling, and the requisite holiday parties.

Fawn Nebinger over at Foxglove & Madison Cheese, in Madison, has a word for those of us hosting those holiday parties.

Raclette.

Basically, it’s melty cheese served with a bottle of wine or a steamy cup of tea, alongside potatoes and pickles and other yummy stuff. There is work involved, but not that much, mainly involving getting the right supplies, boiling some potatoes, and putting everything out for guests.

“It’s a great way to entertain. You get everything ready in advance, put it out, and then you can relax with your friends,” she says.

To accommodate raclette lovers this holiday season, Nebinger has stocked up on some essential equipment. She is selling something called Partyclette Togo, which “makes it possible to have a raclette party anywhere, anytime,” according to the company that makes it, Boska Holland.

It has a wooden frame, an enameled babeclette pan to cook the cheese, three tea lights to warm up the cheese, and a little spatula for serving the cheese. If you’re having a cookout, you can use the little pan right on the barbecue. The gadget cooks up an appetizer-sized portion of the cheese.

For those who want to take it to the next level, Nebinger is also selling Partyclette XL, which has several compartments to melt the cheese, along with areas for sliced veggies, shredded meat or fish, and other accoutrement. Boska claims this one also “kindles romance that will surprise you again and again.”

While that seems like a pretty big claim, it does look like a lot of fun, and Nebinger has these for sale, or for rent.

Tools and Tips

Other area cheesemongers agree, and also have tools and tips to offer.

Christine Chesanek, the owner and cheesemonger at Fromage Find Foods & Coffees in Old Saybrook, also sells raclette tools from Boska, including the mini raclette grill and a larger one with a swivel arm that accommodates a larger slab of raclette.

“It is absolutely a fun way to entertain,” she says. “It’s not just for the ski slopes anymore. We find that a lot of people in this area with European roots like to share this tradition. And it’s getting to be a thing with teenagers and 20-somethings. It’s like a nostalgic thing for foodies in their 20s. It’s fun and different than just ordering a pizza again.”

Paul Partica, the owner and cheesemonger at the Cheese Shop of Centerbrook agrees. At his shop, he sells a Swissmar raclette party grill with which he is positively enamored. The cheese melts on the trays below, while other food can be cooked on the top grill.

“I like to think of it as the American version. I’ll cook shrimp, sausage, scallops, different vegetables on top, while melting cheese underneath. Or you can cook something on the top, then put it on the pan underneath, and melt cheese on top of it,” he says. “Then you can serve three, four, five different sauces with it.”

Partica has one that customers can try before they buy.

“You can always use the loaner to make sure it’s to your liking. And we recommend par-cooking the meats, and then just finishing it off on the grill to your liking,” he says. “It’s a fun thing and healthier than meat fondue with all of that oil.”

He also agrees with Nebinger in that serving raclette is a great way to throw a party, because most of the prep is done beforehand.

“Then, the only thing you have to do is get up to get another bottle of wine,” he says.

Cheese, Plus Sides

As for the cheese itself, Nebinger sells Raclette du haut-Livradois from the French side of the Alps. She says it’s every bit as good as Swiss raclette, and a bit more affordable. She recommends serving raclette with wine, some good bread, small cooked potatoes (skins intact), gherkins, and onion jam.

Chesanak also sells the Livradois, and sometimes also stocks a Swiss raclette. She also sells cocktail onions and cornichon pickles, and she also recommends cured meats, such as a high quality ham or prosciutto.

Partica sometimes uses raclette, and sometimes uses other kinds of cheese.

“Experiment,” he says. “Sometimes raclette is not the best tasting cheese in its own right.”

You can use an Appenzeller, a hard cow’s-milk cheese produced in the Appenzell region of northeast Switzerland, or a Gouda, he says, or a Dutch Vlaskaas.

Nebinger’s son, Ian Hagerty, who also works at Foxglove & Madison Cheese, had another recommendation. After cooking the fingerling potatoes to being just a bit underdone, drain them, allow them to cool, and then cut them in half. Place them in a hot skillet with several tablespoons of duck fat, which you can buy at Stop & Shop. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Nebinger says don’t skip the wine, because it complements the rich taste of the cheese. What kind of wine? We checked in with Tony Lombardozzi, the manager of the Madison Wine Shop, at 30 Wall Street in Madison, to find out.

What Grows Together, Goes Together

“Well, a really good way to pair food and wine is to think of it this way: If it grows together, it goes together,” he says. “That is traditionally a Swiss dish.”

He said any wine made from Chasselas wine grapes, a variety grown in Switzerland known for being dry and fruity, would do well, along with anything from the Alsace wine region of France, including Rieslings.

“Anything from the Trimbach or Willm producers would do well,” he says. “They only make whites and they have a few different varieties. Those two would go really well with it.”

If you’ve been overdoing it a bit with the wine lately or otherwise would like to avoid it, Nebinger says you can’t go wrong with a cup of hot tea alongside raclette.

To find out which kind of tea, we checked in with Savvy Tea Gourmet, a short walk from the cheese shop at 121 Samson Rock Drive, in Madison. At the mention of raclette, Judy Parda, who owns the shop with her husband Phil Parda, said she was planning to have it soon, using a Partyclette Togo from Nebinger’s cheese shop.

“We’re having it on Tuesday for Phil’s birthday,” she says. “We haven’t had raclette in years, and it’s such a poignant, wonderful memory for us. It’s such a fun party thing, and we might have it going on Thanksgiving too, as guests arrive.”

What kind of tea?

“So I would serve it with an oolong, maybe our Golden Water Turtle. That’s a darker oolong, very earthy, it has a little bit of smoke to it, from the Fujan province in China,” she says. “Another good one would be an aged Yunnan, which is a dark tea, [or] a lighter pu’erh that is a little earthy would also be very nice.”

Parda says she probably would not do a green tea with raclette, since greens usually have a more delicate taste that might not stand up well to the dish.

“For a nice black, we could do Bai Lin Gong Fu, that is just a very nice self drinking, meaning it doesn’t need milk or sugar to balance the taste. It’s not too astringent. It doesn’t dry out the mouth too much. We call this one black velvet. It’s a silky, nice temperate black tea,” she says.

She says she’s looking forward to her celebration with her husband and the raclette.

“We have an outdoor fire place. We can start there with a nice vino, with the raclette as an appetizer in the late afternoon, and then start cooking after that,” she says.

The Cheese Shop, at 33 Main Street, Centerbrook can be reached at 860-767-8500. Fromage, at 873 Boston Post Road, Old Saybrook, can be reached at 860-388-5750. Foxglove & Madison Cheese, at 119 Samson Road Drive, Madison, can be reached at 203-245-5168.