This week, I received a story from one of my readers about a fondue party that she hosted. Maybe her story can give us a few ideas on hosting one of these parties ourselves.
On Dec 31, 2010, my boyfriend and I decided to invite a couple of our friends over for dinner and to celebrate the New Year but we didn’t really know what to have for dinner… After hesitating for a while, we went from a wine and cheese idea to a fondue party idea.
I already had my own fondue pots, plates and forks (I own a small ceramic fondue pot for chocolate/dessert fondue and a larger pot that can be used for hot broth or cheese fondue). My friend Leanne also had a pot of her own with inserts that is suitable for all types of fondue.
Her boyfriend wanted an oil fondue but I was hoping for a healthy start to the New Year, and was looking for a broth fondue (with fewer calories). We agreed that they would bring their pot along and we could decide which one we wanted on the spot and we could always have the option of having both at the same time!
After enjoying an assortment of appetizers (cheese, crackers, baguette slices, veggies, dips, hummus, pita bread and sausages), we decided to start thinking about getting the fondue ready.
I had cut and pre-cooked some potatoes earlier that afternoon and my broth was already prepared but needed to be re-heated. So I turned on the stove and brought it up to a boil before transferring it to the pot on the table. As my friend Aaron was still keen on having hot oil fondue, I also filled the other pot to about 1/3 full with vegetable oil then turned on both alcohol burners. I transferred a few potato pieces into my beef broth to finish them off and give them a nice flavor.
I got my raw beef slices, chicken cubes, mushrooms, shrimps and assorted dips onto the table and invited our guests to get started with dinner.
Of course, we kept the raw meat separate from the cooked food and we each had separate fondue forks to keep track of our items… Although it took my boyfriend 2 hours to realize that he indeed had 3 forks like the rest of us. That’s when we found an overcooked mushroom floating in the oil… along with his third empty fork…
We then took a break to watch the New Year Celebration on TV. We unfortunately didn’t have time to find the right channel to see the ball drop in New York City, so we settled on local coverage.
After having a toast to 2011, we went back to the kitchen table and got ready for our dessert: chocolate fondue. We melted semi-sweet chocolate chunks and added a little bit of cream for texture and dipped pieces of bananas, cantaloupe, apple, mandarin oranges and mini-marshmallows. Delicious!
All in all, we had a great dinner, lots of laughs and plenty of time to catch up on what was happening in each other’s lives. We enjoyed our meal so much that we decided to have fondue again in the very near future… Perhaps a quadruple fondue dinner with cheese fondue as an appetizer, hot broth and hot oil for main entrees and caramel fondue for dessert… Yum!
If you would like to learn more about fondue
, discover some great tasting recipes or learn how to use fondue equipment, visit bestfondue.com.
Caroline
