Three Fondues

I'm always up for over-the-top food. And if an idea is a good one, why not triple it?

Having received a chocolate fondue set for Christmas, we were eager to try it out. It seemed appropriate to plan a multiple fondue feast - Cheese, Broth, and the Chocolate for dessert. It also seemed like a good opportunity to return the hospitality of Chris and Coral for their mid-December feast. (Thanks go to Coral for the pictures of the broth fondue and the chocolate fondue treats!)The cheese fondue was composed of McEwan's Scotch Ale, two cheddars (one smoked), some mustard and some cayenne.
The McEwans was a great choice for these cheeses - the strong and sweet ale paired really nicely with the slightly smoky cheddar. I probably should have paid more attention when warming it all up - it curdled quite quickly but a bit of lime juice smoothed it out a bit. We eventually enjoyed it with roasted potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, kielbassa rounds, bread cubes, and cherry tomatoes.Considering the heaviness of the cheese fondue, I opted for a broth fondue rather than oil for cooking meat. I had planned on getting some wonderful scallops from Mariner Neptune and thought a nice gingery broth would work really well. Unfortunately, the scallops were way too huge to cook properly in the over-crowded fondue pot! The beef, chicken and prawns worked really nicely though (and left me with some tasty broth at the end of the night!)
We had a couple of very nasty fire flare-ups as a result of the old lamp oil that we used for fuel. Both pots got charred black and the metal pot had a 1/2 centimetre of ash covering its base. (Note for future reference: buy Sterno for next fondue).



And to end off the evening, we had strawberries, bananas, marzipan cubes, marshmellows, and peanut butter balls for dipping in chocolate.
The chocolate that came with the fondue set didn't last long though, and I had about as much success with melting more chocolate that I had with the cheese earlier. I brilliantly thought it would be clever to mix in some plain yogurt to melted chocolate, forgetting how easily this stuff seizes up... But thank goodness that you only need a bit of chocolate to make the sweetness of a strawberry sing!