With the autumn night’s drawing in, there’s nothing better than bedding in with a soul-warming cheesy dinner and bottle of wine. One of our favourite dishes (and most popular on our Cheese Cafe menu) is Baked Raclette. This is a classic peasant mountain dish, beloved by skiers everywhere in the French and Swiss Alps. Traditionally this is served using a Raclette machine, where the face of a quarter or half cheese is placed onto the heat and the molten cheese is slid onto hot new potatoes, Raclette literally means scraper. But this dish is equally as delicious layered up and baked in the oven at home. Raclette cheese is a firm-textured, 6kg wheel of cheese, pressed with a thick brushed rind, it is full flavoured, pungent and tasty. A true mountain cheese (we sell the French version) which is made from rich full-fat raw milk for bags of extra flavour and character.

Baked Raclette – Allow 150g-200g Raclette cheese per person

Cook enough new potatoes (allow 200-300g per head depending on your guests’ appetites with skins on) to fill the oven proof dish you are using for the Raclette.
Cook the new potatoes whole in their skins in salted boiling water until tender, then slice to the thickness of two £1 coins.
Thinly slice an onion and cook until soft in a frying pan in lots of butter.
Layer the potatoes and the onions into the ovenproof dish.
At this stage you can add anything tasty that you have in the fridge, cooked sausages, chorizo, crispy lardons, cauliflower, courgettes etc…..or be a purist and go neat.
Thinly slice the Raclette cheese from a wedge and layer over the top of sliced potatoes and onions, you can be generous with the cheese as it makes the dish nice and gooey (leave the rind on as it goes nice and crispy at the edges and is very flavoursome).
Place the dish in the oven on 190 degrees and bake until the cheese melts, bubbles and has a lovely golden-brown tinge to the edges.
Serve with cured meats, hams, dressed salad and crispy cornichon. Enjoy!

P.S. If you have a very kind cheesemonger, they should slice the Raclette for you – it does make life easier. Just ask!