One of my favorite things about being a grown-up is getting to create my own traditions with my family. I’ve personally introduced a bunch of Ganz Family traditions over the years, from tamales on Christmas Day to our over-the-top celebration of May the Fourth, aka Star Wars Day, to perhaps my family’s favorite tradition—our annual Valentine’s Day Fond of You Fondue.
After working in restaurants for the better part of a decade, I effectively swore off booking a table on any of the notoriously busiest restaurant days—Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day. I’d rather stay home and cook something I love than fight the crowds.
And there’s something so sweet about celebrating Valentine’s Day as a family, not just a couple. So, every year for the past decade, my family of four has marked the day by making both cheese and chocolate fondue.
Simply Recipes / Stephanie Ganz
My husband worked at The Melting Pot in high school, and I’m a professionally trained chef, but I’m here to admit that fondue isn’t always the easiest thing to get right. We have had a few fondue-related spats over the years, but once the cheese gets melty and the dipping commences, all is forgiven. From that tension, we’ve learned some valuable lessons: reread the recipe every time, make sure everything is prepared before you begin, and then just relax and trust the process.
Assembling all of the ingredients and add-ins in advance is particularly crucial. I start by prepping my dippers. Our favorites for cheese fondue include bread (obviously), prosciutto, cornichons, apple slices, and broccoli. For chocolate fondue, we love marshmallows, pretzels, strawberries, cheesecake bites, bananas, and clementine segments.
I prep all of the ingredients for cheese fondue so they’re ready to go before I get started. I also like to make the chocolate fondue ahead of time, a trick I learned from my colleagues at Simply Recipes!
Simply Recipes / Stephanie Ganz
Despite owning a gorgeous Dansk fondue pot, I use an electric fondue pot for Fond of You Fondue. It’s not the most aesthetic choice, but it’s reliable, and I never have to mess with Sterno. Our set came with those long, very pointy fondue forks, which my six-year-old loves to divvy up among family members.
I like to get started heating the wine and melting a few handfuls of cheese before summoning my family to the table—it helps ease that will it work? tension, so by the time they show up, they’ll be welcomed by a bubbling vat of cheese. Once we’ve polished off the cheese fondue, I clean out the fondue pot and then quickly re-heat my premade chocolate fondue and set out the platter of dippers—et voilà!
Simply Recipes / Stephanie Ganz
Our Favorite Dippers for Cheese Fondue
- Baguette cubes
- Cornichons
- Prosciutto
- Potato Chips
- Blanched broccoli
- Roasted brussel sprouts
- Apple slices
Tips for Making Cheese Fondue
- Add flavor by rubbing the pot with a halved garlic clove. I also like adding a dash of paprika and a few scrapings of nutmeg, which amplify the flavor of the cheese.
- Toss the cheese with cornstarch to keep it from sticking and to create a nice, silky texture.
- While many recipes suggest using an equal mix (called Moitié-Moitié in Switzerland) of Gruyère and Emmentaler, I prefer a blend of Gruyère and aged Carr Valley fontina, which I think more closely mimics the traditional Vacherin Fribourgeois, a hearty Swiss cheese that can be hard to find stateside.
- Serve a little mustard, like a classic Dijon or Maille Whole Grain, on the side. The sharpness contrasts beautifully with the creamy, nutty cheese.
- If you don’t have a fondue pot, you can make fondue on the stove, and then keep it warm in a crockpot. I love these mini crockpots for keeping things warm.
- While my family ignores the anecdotal advice not to drink cold beverages with fondue, we do uphold another important fondue-related regulation—If you drop a piece of food into the pot, you have to kiss the cook. It is Valentine’s Day, after all.
Simply Recipes / Stephanie Ganz
#Cheesy #Family #Celebrates #Valentines #Day
