bourbiza mohamed
Amy Thompson, the brand representative for Appenzeller in the U.S., agrees that Appenzeller is a great cheese for fondue because it melts so well. “It’s a semi-hard cheese that has more moisture than other hard cheeses, and when combined with the traditional fondue ingredients, makes the perfect texture,” she explains.
There are various age profiles of Appenzeller cheese available, White Label, with a portion of cream added, and Black Label aged 6-9 months; but when it comes to cooking with cheese Thompson recommends a 3 month aged Appenzeller Silver Label noting, ” It is good for any fondue recipe because it melts beautifully and it has a great herbaceous and nutty flavor.”
As an alternative, a good substitute for Vacherin Fribourgeois is a goat milk raclette, a Swiss cheese that’s known for being sliced while heated. “It has a great melt ability; it has a high-water content,” says Hostettler.
She adds that while some fondue makers might use Emmentaler AOP, a Swiss medium-hard cheese with distinctive holes, but she doesn’t. “For me, [with] Emmentaler when you melt it, it gets stringy. It gets gummy almost.” Read more about Emmentaler AOP.
Another fondue appropriate cheese is L’Etivaz, an Alpine cow’s milk cheese with a rich fruity and nutty flavor. This cheese is only made in the summertime and gets its name from the hamlet within the southwestern region of the Swiss Alps where it’s produced. It’s similar to Gruyère but sweeter and comes in a smaller wheel size. By AOP law, every wheel of L’Etivaz has to be made over an open wood fire in a hut or chalet.
“I know in the area of L’Etivaz, people do make plain 100 percent, L’Etivaz for fondue and they’re wonderful. So that also is traditional” shares Hostettler.
Joe Salonia learned about making fondue through his job at the Swiss cheese company Gourmino Affinage & Selection. It has helped him to develop his own base recipe of various cheese blends. Unlike Hostettler, he favors Emmentaler. “I advise that Emmentaler is the base of the mountain, and I believe modestly 25 percent should be used as a good base to that because it’s such an iconic cheese,” says Salonia. “It provides a good foundation of flavor.”
Salonia is aware that sometimes Emmentaler is criticized for being too stringy, however, depending on how much fondue you’re making, he said he was taught a remedy to fix this is by adding a couple of teaspoons—or sometimes up to a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice. He explains that this method “not only acts as a delicious flavor counterpoint to the very rich cheese flavors, but it also shortens the proteins and it helps the cheese snap around the bread so that you’re not getting this long strand.”
