Melted cheese: the guilty pleasure more appetizing in the winter

Switzerland has the ‘fondue’ and ‘raclette’;France, ‘quiche lorraine’ and the ‘ramekins’; Italy, the ‘fonduta’; England, the ‘Welsh rarebit’… And what about Spain? Why here there is a dish with melted cheese? Maybe take it as an appetizer, has much to do…

At the start of the cold, Europe gets to melt cheese and incorporate it to your hot dishes, some of which have gained fame already a long time ago. And also overseas, where the europeans brought the culture of the cheese, and melt at base of well, both in Mexico and in Argentina. Yes, maybe some of us will have been in the pipeline, but after much digging we found no Spanish traditions ancient with melted cheese, although long ago that we have adopted -those rich cannelloni au gratin that we arrived in the NINETEENTH century from Italy to Barcelona…- several of those recipes alien.

The habit of hispanic take the cheese as an appetizer and not at the end of the meal you may have to do with the discrepancy with the uses in europe. Although, as we say, in recent times add up easily dishes outside or even quesifican old traditions our: what they will think of the eternal dispute with onion/no onion to learn that today is swarming with recipes for potato omelette with cheese?

For those of a certain age who only learned of children a form of melted cheese, although not hot, they were the cheese in portions, The Houses, the great discovery came when we jumped the Pyrenees not to mention Alps. That Europe itself that melted with delight.

To get started by the Gotha of melted cheese, there is a shop around Switzerland and its two great recipes, the fondue and the raclette. Both very good in the historic restaurant Les Armures Geneva, by the way.

Fondue is usually made with a blend of cheeses, typically one more hard, as the gruyère, and one more tender, as the vacherin. Melt in a casserole bottom thick, with a handle, called a caquelon, which may be of cast iron or, more classical, of ware. They are stuck good piece of bread of wheat or rye and are dipped into the cheese liquid in a full boil. In the background, like the socarrat in paella, it forms a layer on toast, the religieuse, apreciadísima by the swiss.

The raclette is a specialty of the Valais and is made with the namesake cheese of hard paste, in the form of a wheel, produced in villages alpine Bagnes. It is necessary to a infiernillo vertical face of which is placed the cheese split in half, so that the layer closest to the heat will start to melt and you can scrape (râcler, in French) and to serve; traditionally, with potatoes roasted with their skin, gherkins and pickled onions. Plus a glass of wine Fendant grape chasselas.

In the neighboring France also do a lot of fondue and a lot of raclette, and are reluctant to grant the birthright to his neighbors francs. Already know how are the French to these things… But it does have a few well-known ways of cooking with cheese, whose authorship cannot be denied anyone: the soufflé cheese classic (with a emmental or comté, flour, butter and eggs), the famous quiche lorraine (with your base of pasta quebrada, and, over it, grated cheese, onions, and chopped bacon stir-fries, eggs and cream) and the small ramekins, round molds where to make a mixture of grated cheese, wine, cream and flour that has been eating hot.

Also in the alpine world, the italians have traditionally used their grated cheese -parmigiano, pecorino, etc. – to finish off your pasta dishes. But there’s also a great dish based on the cheese, traditional in the Aosta valley and in Piedmont: the fonduta, who despite his name and geographical proximity is very different from switzerland because it does not remain only in the cheese.

A fonduta classic is, in effect, with fontina cheese, which is tender and of delicate flavor, milk, eggs and butter. Cook all together, let it thicken for about 10 minutes, and served from a fountain accompanied by bread, potatoes or asparagus (or all three) to embadurnarlos with the wonderful blend and taste.

From a european country such as Great Britain, of little fame culinary, but here we have claimed a few weeks ago, comes to us a traditional dish that throughout the NINETEENTH and TWENTIETH centuries it was adopted by great traditional restaurants from all over the world: the sympathetic Welsh rarebit, that the more traditional written Welsh rabbit, that is to say, rabbit welsh.

On a base of toasted bread is placed a mixture of roux (flour tostada), ale, aged cheddar, grated, mustard, black pepper and Worcestershire sauce. It is placed under a grill very hot, until the mixture is toasted and chisporroteante. And, yes, it can be served with that same beer potent and well british, an IPA or a strong ale…

The melted cheese in the kitchenettes, which came along with so many other elements of european, would be never-ending a relationship of its uses in the mexican, and not only for the quesadillas, which are essentially a corn tortilla wrapping melted cheese, but by the long series of studs from all over the country and burritos of Chihuahua, which involved the local cheeses, among those who dominate the young and soft as sugar cane and roast.

we Ended the tour in Argentina and in the skilled Italian emigrants that were able to modify the provolone cheese of their country of origin, spinning its mass to that, placed a wheel on a grill of the employees there for the meat, not to melt suddenly and fall to the fire, but that merged inside and tostase out. As well, the provolone had been born the provoleta argentina, and from over half a century ago there are not parrillada gaucha without that bite. In the Pampa, in Buenos Aires… or in Madrid.

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