Raclette

So, it's Thursday! And being Thursday it's Mr TK's night to cook! I helped him out a bit by suggesting something quite simple and easy for him to do tonight, no not a frozen pizza as has been done before. A raclette!

So what is a raclette and how do we do it?

Raclette is both a type of cheese and, informally, a dish featuring this cheese. In French, the word for the cheese is masculine, le raclette, whereas the word for the dish is feminine, la raclette.

Raclette is a semi-firm, cow's milk cheese - very good for melting. It is usually fashioned into a round of about 6 kg (13 lb).

Raclette is also a dish found in parts of Switzerland and France. The Raclette cheese round is heated, either in front of a fire or by a special machine, then scraped onto diners' plates; the term raclette derives from the French word racler, meaning "to scrape". Traditionally, it is accompanied by small firm potatoes, gherkins, pickled onions, dried meat, such as prosciutto.

A modern way of serving raclette involves an electric table-top grill with small pans, known as coupelles, to heat slices of raclette cheese in. Generally the grill is surmounted by a hot plate or griddle. The cheese is brought to the table sliced, accompanied by platters of boiled or steamed potatoes, other vegetables and cold meats. These are then mixed with potatoes and topped with cheese in the small, wedge-shaped coupelles that are placed under the grill to melt and brown the cheese. Alternatively, slices of cheese may be melted and simply poured over food on the plate.

Now, being a non meat eater, I obviously don't have the meat, so instead prefer to have some crevettes (as I do eat fish) which I grill, I sometimes may add a few scallops to the grill. For the meat, I tend to buy a pack of different cold meats especially for the raclette.

You can add whatever you like really, I also tend to have some sliced mushrooms to cook, slices of red or green pepper and tomatoes, and also you can grill the sliced cooked potatoes on the top of the grill.