Fondue Feasts

Fondue goes in and out of style, but at heart it’s an ancient form of one-pot-cooking. And right now it's hot, hot, hot.

Fondue can be a pot of melted cheese, liquefied chocolate, or boiling-hot oil for cooking meats. The fun part is skewering nibbles on long forks and dipping into the communal pot. What better way to gather your best pals and truly share a meal.

Fondue for All Reasons

Girls Night In: chocolate fondue, baby! Get your best-friends-forever in front of the widescreen, tune in a chick flick and pull out all the forbidden goodies: brownie bites, Oreos, marshmallows, angel food cake, and strawberries. Now get dippin’ and dishin'.
Little Dippers: cheese fondue. Let the kids pick and prepare the dippers (sliced sausage, mini hot dogs, pretzels, veggie bites) because sometimes everything is better with melted cheese. Make it nacho cheese fondue by adding bottled salsa. Make it a total dip experience by serving it at your kid's next pool party.

Double Dip: cheese fondue for dinner; chocolate fondue for dessert. Turn this into a romantic dinner for two with candlelight, music, wine, and lots of succulent nibbles to feed each other.

All Dips, All the Time: entertain buffet style by setting up several fondue stations. Let guests wander and cook their own meats, vegetables, and desserts.

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Planning the Menu

Start the meal with a salad. It's not fondue, but it's a nice way to whet the appetite for the main course.

Strawberry Spinach Salad I Blue Cheese Pear Salad

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Pick at least two savory fondue options to give guests variety.

Cheese Fondue Parmesan Fondue Beef Fondue with Sauces Wine Fondue

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Pull out all the stops for dessert by taking a basic recipe and embellishing it with added liqueurs and inventive dippers.

Totally Groovy Chocolate Fondue Five-Minute Chocolate Fondue Butterscotch Fondue

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Fondue Tricks and Tips

Best food size: Aim for 1-inch cubes, just enough for one or two bites.

Best fondue pot: Ceramics work best for showcasing dessert fondue; metal pots work best for cooking meats and vegetables in oil, wine, or broth.

Best temperature: A tea light candle or low flame (a warm 120 degrees) keeps cheese or dessert fondues at perfect melting temperatures. If you’re cooking meats in a pot of hot oil, the oil needs to be kept at 375 degrees to cook food quickly and evenly.

Best oil: peanut oil. A low smoke point makes it best for high frying temperatures.

Best wine: Something acidic (like Sauvignon Blanc) helps keep cheese fondue smooth.

Best fast fix: Cheese mixture clumping? Add a few drops of lemon juice. Chocolate or butterscotch mixture separating? Whisk in a little more cream.

Best fondue fork stand-in: Long wooden skewers. Find them at the supermarket along with other supplies for outdoor grilling.

Ribs Tips: Rethinking Braised Short Ribs

Published January 1, 2009.

Rich, fork-tender short ribs usually need an overnight rest to get rid of the grease. We wanted the fat gone by dinnertime—no bones about it.

The Problem

Since so much fat is rendered during the ribs’ stint in the oven, most recipes call for resting them in the braising liquid overnight, so that the fat solidifies into an easy-to-remove layer. However, most people don’t plan their dinners days in advance and with so much fat, skimming it off with a spoon doesn’t work well enough. The meat and sauce come out greasy, no matter how diligent one’s spoon-wielding.

The Goal

A silky, grease-free sauce and fork-tender short rib meat, all in a few hours.

The Solution

The first task was to choose the right rib. Instead of traditional bone-in short ribs, we used boneless short ribs, which rendered significantly less fat than bone-in. While we didn’t miss much flavor from the bones, we did want the body that the bones’ connective tissue added. To solve this, we sprinkled a bit of gelatin into the sauce to restore suppleness. We also wanted to ramp up the richness of the sauce. Taking a cue from our French-Style Pot Roast recipe, we jump-started flavor by reducing wine with browned aromatics (onions, shallots, celery, and carrots) before using it to cook the meat. This added the right intensity, but we need another cup of liquid to keep the meat half-submerged—the right level for braises. More wine yielded too much wine flavor; we used beef broth instead. As for the excess fat, the level was low enough that straining and defatting the liquid in a fat separator, and then reducing it concentrated the flavors, made for a rich, luxurious sauce for our soft, succulent boneless short ribs.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Serves 6.   Published January 1, 2009.   From Cook's Illustrated.

Make sure that the ribs are at least 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. If boneless ribs are unavailable, substitute 7 pounds of bone-in beef short ribs at least 4 inches long with 1 inch of meat above the bone. To remove the meat from the bone, see the illustrations below. We recommend a bold red wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Côtes du Rhône. The test kitchen’s preferred brand of beef broth is Pacific. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or roasted potatoes.

Ingredients

3 1/2	pounds boneless short ribs , trimmed of excess fat (see note and technique below)
	Kosher salt and ground black pepper
2	tablespoons vegetable oil
2	large onions , peeled and sliced thin from pole to pole (about 4 cups)
1	tablespoon tomato paste
6	medium garlic cloves , peeled
2	cups red wine (see note)
1	cup beef broth
4	large carrots , peeled and cut crosswise into 2-inch pieces
4	sprigs fresh thyme
1	bay leaf
1/4	cup cold water
1/2	teaspoon unflavored powdered gelatin

Instructions

1. 1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat beef dry with paper towels and season with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until smoking. Add half of beef and cook, without moving, until well browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Turn beef and continue to cook on second side until well browned, 4 to 6 minutes longer, reducing heat if fat begins to smoke. Transfer beef to medium bowl. Repeat with remaining tablespoon oil and meat.
2. 2. Reduce heat to medium, add onions, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. (If onions begin to darken too quickly, add 1 to 2 tablespoons water to pan.) Add tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until it browns on sides and bottom of pan, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Increase heat to medium-high, add wine and simmer, scraping bottom of pan with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, until reduced by half, 8 to 10 minutes. Add broth, carrots, thyme, and bay leaf. Add beef and any accumulated juices to pot; cover and bring to simmer. Transfer pot to oven and cook, using tongs to turn meat twice during cooking, until fork slips easily in and out of meat, 2 to 2½ hours.
3. 3. Place water in small bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top; let stand at least 5 minutes. Using tongs, transfer meat and carrots to serving platter and tent with foil. Strain cooking liquid through fine-mesh strainer into fat separator or bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Allow liquid to settle about 5 minutes and strain off fat. Return cooking liquid to Dutch oven and cook over medium heat until reduced to 1 cup, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in gelatin mixture; season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over meat and serve.

Swedish Meatballs

Serves 4 to 6.   Published January 1, 2009.   From Cook's Illustrated.

The traditional accompaniments for Swedish meatballs are lingonberry preserves and Swedish Pickled Cucumbers (see related recipe). If you can’t find lingonberry preserves, cranberry preserves may be used. For a slightly less sweet dish, omit the brown sugar in the meatballs and reduce the brown sugar in the sauce to 2 teaspoons. A 12-inch slope-sided skillet can be used in place of the sauté pan—use 1 1/2 cups of oil to fry instead of 1 1/4 cups. The meatballs can be fried and then frozen for up to 2 weeks. To continue with the recipe, thaw the meatballs in the refrigerator overnight and proceed from step 3, using a clean pan. Serve the meatballs with mashed potatoes, boiled red potatoes, or egg noodles.

Ingredients

Meatballs
1	large egg
1/4	cup heavy cream
1	large slice high-quality white sandwich bread , crusts removed and bread torn into 1-inch pieces
8	ounces ground pork
1	small onion , grated on large holes of box grater (about 1/4 cup)
1/8	teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8	teaspoon ground allspice
1/8	teaspoon ground black pepper
1	teaspoon packed brown sugar (see note)
1 1/2	teaspoons table salt
1	teaspoon baking powder
8	ounces 85 percent lean ground beef
1 1/4	cups vegetable oil
Sauce
1	tablespoon unsalted butter
1	tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2	cups low-sodium chicken broth
1	tablespoon packed brown sugar (see note)
1/2	cup heavy cream
2	teaspoons juice from 1 lemon

Instructions

1. 1. For the Meatballs: Whisk egg and cream together in medium bowl. Stir in bread and set aside. Meanwhile, in stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat pork, onion, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder on high speed until smooth and pale, about 2 minutes, scraping bowl as necessary. Using fork, mash bread mixture until no large dry bread chunks remain; add mixture to mixer bowl and beat on high speed until smooth and homogeneous, about 1 minute, scraping bowl as necessary. Add beef and mix on medium-low speed until just incorporated, about 30 seconds, scraping bowl as necessary. Using moistened hands, form generous tablespoon of meat mixture into 1-inch round meatball; repeat with remaining mixture to form 25 to 30 meatballs.
2. 2. Heat oil in 10-inch straight-sided sauté pan over medium-high heat until edge of meatball dipped in oil sizzles (oil should register 350 degrees on instant-read thermometer), 3 to 5 minutes. Add meatballs in single layer and fry, flipping once halfway through cooking, until lightly browned all over and cooked through, 7 to 10 minutes. (Adjust heat as needed to keep oil sizzling but not smoking.) Using slotted spoon, transfer browned meatballs to paper towel-lined plate.
3. 3. For the Sauce: Pour off and discard oil in pan, leaving any fond (browned bits) behind. Return pan to medium-high heat and add butter. When foaming subsides, add flour and cook, whisking constantly, until flour is light brown, about 30 seconds. Slowly whisk in broth, scraping pan bottom to loosen browned bits. Add brown sugar and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to medium and cook until sauce is reduced to about 1 cup, about 5 minutes. Stir in cream and return to simmer.
4. 4. Add meatballs to sauce and simmer, turning occasionally, until heated through, about 5 minutes. Stir in lemon juice, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

REAL SWEDISH MEATBALLS

Cook´s Illustrated: Published January 1, 2009.

Meatballs have to be Sweden’s national dish for a reason. What’s the secret to making them light, springy, and flavorful?

The Problem

Too often, most recipes for this dish produce flavorless balls of ground beef or pork covered with thick, grainy sauces.

The Goal

Substantial yet delicate meatballs with a sausagelike springiness and satisfying snap, accompanied by a light cream sauce instead of heavy, brown gravy.

The Solution

We began with a combination of beef and pork and a panade—a paste of bread and liquid that is mixed into the meat. Although these yielded moist meatballs, they were too tender and practically fell apart. A panade works in two ways: Its liquid adds moisture, and the bread starch gets in the way of the meat’s proteins, preventing them from interconnecting and becoming tough. But it can result in meatballs that barely hold together. Thinking of other ingredients that lightened food, we turned to baking powder. Combining baking powder and a slice of bread mixed with cream provided moistness, substance, and lightness. To get sausagelike springiness, we took a cue from sausage-making techniques and used our stand mixer to whip the pork with salt, baking powder, and seasonings before adding the panade and gently folding in the ground beef. The results? The panade and baking powder kept the meatballs delicate and juicy, the whipped pork distributed the fat and provided spring, and the barely mixed beef offered heartiness. For the cooking method, shallow frying worked best—it browned the meatballs evenly and cooked them through. The final step was the sauce. Using mostly stock, a bit of cream lightened things, and some sugar helped balance flavors. A splash of lemon juice added just before serving lent brightness to these light, juicy Swedish meatballs.