Raclette-A Fun Christmas Tradition from Switzerland

Part of our family comes from Bavaria and, every festive season, we prepare a raclette (or two or three) with our guests. The raclette originally comes from Switzerland, but is popular in Germany too. It is a table-top grill with up to 8 little pans underneath the grill, plus a stone/griddle on top. The basic idea is that each person has their own pan and puts a little cooking oil in it, then puts it under the grill to heat the oil. Once the oil is hot you add your meat/veggies and herbs. You pop your pan under the grill, brown the contents and then add a piece of raclette cheese and put your pan under again to melt the cheese. Once the cheese has melted you scrape everything out of your pan with a little wooden spatula onto your plate, then gobble it up with some fresh baguette and dips like tzatziki. It's such a fun, social way to eat. We usually start in the afternoon listening to cheesy Christmas songs and chopping all the meat and veg together, then we heat the raclette up and get started early evening. It's not a meal to be hurried and there's usually fierce competition in our house over who can eat the most pans! At the moment, our teenage son holds the record at10 pans😮.

This is what we normally cook on a raclette, but basically anything goes:

bacon/pancetta/pork/beef steak/shrimps/chicken cut up in small pieces

sliced waxy potatoes/tomatoes/mushrooms/peppers/courgettes/sweetcorn/spring onion/red onion/garlic/herbs

baguette

tzatziki

hummous

salad

Some advice in case you want to try it:

1) It takes maybe 20 minutes to heat up, so plug it in a little bit before you want to eat.

2) Our kids have joined in from being tiny, but the pans get very hot so younger kids do need close supervision. They also need help to work out when the meat is properly cooked.

3) You can get raclette plates with sections that keep raw meat separate from cooked meat. Obviously it's important to avoid cross-contamination when doing raclette.

4) You can find thick slices of raclette cheese in specialist shops, but you can use any cheese that melts like gruyere or mozzarella. If we use the raclette cheese we cut the slices in half because a whole slice on top gets you full very quickly.

5) We sometimes pop a bit of oil on the top griddle and toast the baguette or cook halloumi on there. We've set the smoke alarm off on numerous occasions doing this, which just adds to the fun!

6) We usually use any leftover ingredients the next day in an omelette, stir-fry or fried-rice dish.

7) Most of all, chill out and enjoy the fact that everyone has to cook their own dinner😁

This year we'll be raising a glass to all our friends and relatives in far-flung places and hoping that next year we'll all be in it together again.