HOW TO HOST WITH HUGH BROWN'S

There is something wonderful about the thought of a cheese fondue but it doesn’t always go to plan. The magic here is using a bit of cornflour to ensure the cheese melts rather than congeals a tip Domini got from Heston Blumenthal’s recipe. It’s perfectly fine to leave and reheat although best served immediately. The trick is to have everything ready and then chuck in your cheese and keep it warm by serving it in a heavy-based saucepan that you cooked it in. Get everyone to dunk into it fast. It won’t last long and is truly delicious with wine. Domini adds “Heston recommends keeping any leftovers and slicing them into triangles to use in toasted sambos, which does sound utterly divine. Use any hard cheese but I added some goats and plenty of bitty ends of cheese that were never going to get eaten. As long as you can grate it, and you like the flavour, chuck it in.”

Cheese Fondue

INGREDIENTS:

900 g hard cheese, including Gruyere, Comte, St Gall, Montgomery cheddar
15 g cornflour
2 tbsp. Sherry
Bit of thyme
3 cloves garlic
500 ml white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. mustard powder
Pinch ground cloves
Serves 6-8

METHOD:

Grate the cheese, and discard the rind. Toss in a bowl with the cornflour. Heat the sherry with the thyme and garlic and leave to infuse. Do your best to get some thyme and garlic flavour into the sherry and still have enough liquid to pour into the cheese mixture later on. Strain the sherry and discard the garlic and thyme and set aside.

You can park everything at this stage until ready to start the fondue as once you start, you will only be a few minutes between cooking the fondue and serving, so go rally the troops and have your croutes or hunks of bread ready to go, plus some forks for dunking the bread into the piping hot cheese, unless you own a fondue set.

In a heavy-based saucepan, heat up the wine and lemon juice until boiling. Add in handfuls of the cheese and whisk. Add in the mustard powder, a pinch of cloves and the strained sherry liquid. Keep whisking and once all the cheese has been added and all melted, serve straight away.

PUT YOUR MASKS ON

Smoked Fish Paté

INGREDIENTS:

Approx 250 g crème fraiche
2 tbsp Dijon
2 tbsp fresh horseradish, peeled and grated
Salt & pepper
Pinch caster sugar
Small bunch dill
Small bunch tarragon
Juice and rind of 1 lemon
500 g smoked fish, very finely diced
Serve 6-8 on crackers or croutes or good brown bread

METHOD:

Mix all the ingredients together. Adjust seasoning and serve.

This still tastes great after 2 days in the fridge, although you may need to give it a really good stir. The crème fraiche sauce on its own is a great condiment for roast beef or anything with beetroot.

We look forward to welcoming you back into our in-house restaurant Hugh Brown’s on level 3 of our Dublin store once more when government restrictions are lifted and we are all safe to wine and dine again. Keep an eye on our social channels for the latest updates (@officialbrownthomas).

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