Au Fond de Mon Coeur- Fondue

This is not at all a "traditional" fondue, but quite honestly, traditional fondue always seems better in theory than in reality. Simultaneously too harsh (the kirsch?) and too bland- one cheese and some starch and some bread. Why go through all the trouble of making fondue if I could melt some cheese on bread and have something taste basically the same.

So, I found a delicious fondue recipe on epicurious.com called Three Cheese Fondue with Champagne. It calls for gruyere, emmental and brie with shallots, champagne and lemon juice with corn starch. Since the market I went to had run out of gruyere, since, according to the cheesemonger "everyone's making fondue." So I substituted raclette. I then winged all of the amounts.

Hallelujah!

Here was the zap, zing, the flavor I dreamed of when I thought of fondue.


Here's a crap picture- We'd been dipping for awhile already.

It'll taste damn good no matter what the amounts are, these ingredients make it awesome.

Here's my approximate recipe.

Ingredients:
Medium wedge of Brie, rind removed
Large chunks of Raclette and Emmental, rind removed- grate or small cubes
4 teaspoons of corn starch dissolved in 1 lemon's worth lemon juice
2 cups of champagne
1 large shallot coarse diced
1 small garlic clove smashed and minced
pepper
ground nutmeg- optional

Cooking:
1) Bring the shallots to a simmer in the champagne in a saucepan for awhile.
2) Remove pot from heat and add the cheese and lemon juice corn starch.
3) Put it back on the heat (low to medium). Stir and melt the cheese down.
4) Should be all smooth and thick soon!

Pour the fondue into your pot and serve it with whatever you like! We had cubed baguette, watermelon radish (prettier to look at than to eat), briefly steamed broccoli, boiled fingerlings, baby carrots.