2025 Raclette Family Dinner
(2/8/2025)
2025 Raclette Family Dinner(2/8/2025)
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On Saturday, February 8, 2025, Katherine and Brian hosted a "Raclette Family Dinner" for Katherine, Brian, Ari, and Eli. This page has some notes and recipes. You can click on any photo below for the highest quality original version that exists.
Some Background Info: When Ari and Eli attended Stanford in California, they lived just 3 miles away from Katherine and Brian. Sometimes we would have "family dinner" where the Ari and Eli would come to dinner at Katherine and Brian's house. Stanford was 10 years ago now, and Katherine and Brian and Eli live in Austin, Texas. Ari lives in France! So Ari flew to Austin hand carrying French cheese (Raclette) and we had a nostalgic reunion. Raclette is both a type of cheese like "swiss" or "cheddar", but also describes a specific type of meal (traditionally from Switzerland) where you melt the Raclette cheese and spread the melted cheese over potatoes. Each person heats their own cheese to taste with a little oven that sits in the middle of the table during the meal.
List of things on the Table when serving Raclette:
- Cheese
- Small "waxy" potatoes (little red potatoes, and white potatoes, and brown
potatoes, boiled separately and brought to the table)
- Raclette Seasoning (see recipe immediately below this section)
- Broccoli (this was Ari's addition, you pour melted cheese over it like the
potatoes)
- Cornichons (gherkins from France, they are little pickles)
- Colorful bell peppers (see photos below)
- Asparagus
- Olives
- Dried apricots
- Mushrooms (we pre-sliced them for easy grilling with a little butter)
- Nuts (salted almonds, we had "spicy"etc)
- Pickled carrots
- Red Radishes
- Red cherry tomatoes (these have various names like "grape tomatoes" or "spoon
tomatoes", they are small tomatoes)
- White wine
- Génépi (a traditional
herbal liqueur which is 32% alcohol, our brand was "Granier"
hand carried by Ari from France)
Raclette Seasoning Recipe:
This is an optional salt and garlic type dried powder seasoning you can
optionally sprinkle on the top of your Raclette (after melting the cheese).
In Switzerland, you can buy this pre-mixed, but in the USA it isn't available.
So you have to mix your own. This is the recipe Brian used to mix up some:
3 teaspoons (8 grams, .3 oz.) cumin
2 teaspoons (6 grams, .2 oz.) finely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons (6 grams, .2 oz.) ground nutmeg
1 ½ teaspoons (4 grams, .15 oz.) ground mustard
1 ½ teaspoons (4 grams, .15 oz.) California paprika (sweet)
1 ½ teaspoons (4 grams, .15 oz.) Beau Monde seasoning (Earnest
Hemmingway liked Beau Monde on his hamburgers)
1 ½ teaspoons (4 grams, .15 oz.) ground fenugreek
1 ½ teaspoons (4 grams, .15 oz.) finely ground garlic powder (not salt)
To prove this is available in Switzerland in a pre-mixed bottle, here is a picture I took (not during this dinner) a couple years earlier while visiting a friend in Switzerland (search within that link for "Raclette"):
Pictures of the Raclette Dinner below:
In the first picture below, we are setting up the table. You can see the Raclette oven at the center of the table, and the little "sticks" sticking out are the little pans each person uses to melt their own cheese. Eli is on the left taking a photo, and Ava the dog is in the lower right corner trying to figure out how to get some cheese. At the lower center of the picture, notice the measuring spoons for mixing up the Raclette seasoning, and a pile of the ingredients there by the measuring spoons
Below is Eli's photo. You can see our small "infinite pool" through the Window. At the center of the table is the Raclette oven with two paddles to melt cheese you can remove, place cheese on them, and stick back in the oven. The top is a grill for things like the bell peppers, mushrooms, etc. I add a little butter to the grill from time to time, but it is optional.
The Raclette cheese! We need labels for each cheese!
Another random perspective on the table.
We got too excited during eating and I forgot to take pictures or a video of the "procedure", LOL. Below is a photo of after the meal we hung out talking. Eli on the left, Ari on the right.
That's it! That's all the pictures and descriptions. All done!