Raclette - The DIY meal
As we were going to have our friend IW over for Christmas dinner we decided after many years to have Raclette instead of the traditional stuffed turkey (usually a small one for two).
Well early in the week I got the grill out of storage and dusted it off. What I forgot to do at that time was to see if it still worked. Actually I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t expect it not to work as it is only a hot plate that you can grill on and nothing complicated so I thought.
We did the appropriate Raclette shopping, which was anything that was of course eatable and grill-able either on the hot plate or resizable for the Raclette trays. We also made sure we had enough Raclette cheese to melt and smother everything.
We spent Christmas Eve afternoon either pre-cooking vegetables or marinating meat and most of Christmas morning cutting everything up and fill little bowels. Well after setting up the grill on the dinning room table a couple of hours before we intended to start, I did decide a little apprehensively I admit, to see if the grill would work or not after its eight year hibernation.
I switched it on and after a few moments it started to heat up. Ok lucky I thought. I turned it off and went about piling the table full of little bowels to overflowing making sure we could remove and replace the Raclette trays without getting in the way of each other and avoid knocking over glasses and sauce bottles.
If anyone says Raclette is quick and easy hasn’t taken into consideration the time for the preparation!
At two o’clock we sat down to begin.
I switched the Raclette on and all the lights went out! Not a side effect I planned or was expecting especially after finding it worked earlier that day!
Fortunately it was not completely dark outside so I could unplug the Raclette and with a torch go down into the cellar and check the fuse box. The residual-current switch had turned everything off (what we call here a Fehlerstrom-Schutzschalter)!
As I switched it back on and ascended the stairs I hoped it was the extension cable I had used for the grill that was the culprit. But I had a sneaky feeling it was the grill otherwise why hadn’t it blown beforehand?
While I searched for another cable H was trying to get the Marquee to work. Somehow when I turned the power on again it woke up and got the spontaneous idea to open and after extending about a meter, it then decided it couldn’t remember where the idea had come from and stopped.
I swopped the power cable and turned the grill on again.
The lights went out for a second time!
I again switched it off and unplugged it and again I headed for the cellar and again I turned the power back on.
I ascended the stairs knowing full well that today Raclette was not gong to be the cooking method of choice.
On entering the dining room I found H and IW discussing plan B. IW said she had a Raclette and would go and get it. She lives only ten minutes from us so off she went.
In the meantime I moved our Raclette to the cellar for inspection at a later date. After about half an hour, we got to wondering where a guest had got to. Then the phone rang. She had found the Raclette box but it was empty and she had no idea where the contents were, probably her brother had borrowed it and ‘forgot’ to bring it back.
As she was on her way back we moved everything from the table back into the kitchen. I ended up standing in front of the stove with three frying pans preparing the individual wishes emitting from the dining room and adding my own to the third pan. I only had to make a few trips back and forth.
To be honest I’m not really a Raclette fan, far too much hard work preparing everything upfront and continuing the DIY at the table while trying to catch a bowl that is constantly being handed around the table over and past heat sources that untimely spit hot fat at you if you get too close.
And on top of all that at the end of the meal you see a bottle of sauce that you had totally forgotten about because you were too occupied being asked to pass things about and trying not to scold oneself while extracting at awkward angles colour coded mini frying pans with bubbling hot substances on them from the grill in front of you..
Well early in the week I got the grill out of storage and dusted it off. What I forgot to do at that time was to see if it still worked. Actually I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t expect it not to work as it is only a hot plate that you can grill on and nothing complicated so I thought.
We did the appropriate Raclette shopping, which was anything that was of course eatable and grill-able either on the hot plate or resizable for the Raclette trays. We also made sure we had enough Raclette cheese to melt and smother everything.
We spent Christmas Eve afternoon either pre-cooking vegetables or marinating meat and most of Christmas morning cutting everything up and fill little bowels. Well after setting up the grill on the dinning room table a couple of hours before we intended to start, I did decide a little apprehensively I admit, to see if the grill would work or not after its eight year hibernation.
I switched it on and after a few moments it started to heat up. Ok lucky I thought. I turned it off and went about piling the table full of little bowels to overflowing making sure we could remove and replace the Raclette trays without getting in the way of each other and avoid knocking over glasses and sauce bottles.
If anyone says Raclette is quick and easy hasn’t taken into consideration the time for the preparation!At two o’clock we sat down to begin.
I switched the Raclette on and all the lights went out! Not a side effect I planned or was expecting especially after finding it worked earlier that day!
Fortunately it was not completely dark outside so I could unplug the Raclette and with a torch go down into the cellar and check the fuse box. The residual-current switch had turned everything off (what we call here a Fehlerstrom-Schutzschalter)!
As I switched it back on and ascended the stairs I hoped it was the extension cable I had used for the grill that was the culprit. But I had a sneaky feeling it was the grill otherwise why hadn’t it blown beforehand?
While I searched for another cable H was trying to get the Marquee to work. Somehow when I turned the power on again it woke up and got the spontaneous idea to open and after extending about a meter, it then decided it couldn’t remember where the idea had come from and stopped.
I swopped the power cable and turned the grill on again.
The lights went out for a second time!
I again switched it off and unplugged it and again I headed for the cellar and again I turned the power back on.
I ascended the stairs knowing full well that today Raclette was not gong to be the cooking method of choice.
On entering the dining room I found H and IW discussing plan B. IW said she had a Raclette and would go and get it. She lives only ten minutes from us so off she went.
In the meantime I moved our Raclette to the cellar for inspection at a later date. After about half an hour, we got to wondering where a guest had got to. Then the phone rang. She had found the Raclette box but it was empty and she had no idea where the contents were, probably her brother had borrowed it and ‘forgot’ to bring it back.
As she was on her way back we moved everything from the table back into the kitchen. I ended up standing in front of the stove with three frying pans preparing the individual wishes emitting from the dining room and adding my own to the third pan. I only had to make a few trips back and forth.
To be honest I’m not really a Raclette fan, far too much hard work preparing everything upfront and continuing the DIY at the table while trying to catch a bowl that is constantly being handed around the table over and past heat sources that untimely spit hot fat at you if you get too close.
And on top of all that at the end of the meal you see a bottle of sauce that you had totally forgotten about because you were too occupied being asked to pass things about and trying not to scold oneself while extracting at awkward angles colour coded mini frying pans with bubbling hot substances on them from the grill in front of you..
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