The St Andrew’s Day Fondue

30th November is St Andrew’s day, the patron saint of Scotland. It has been recognised as a sort of public holiday but this year is the first time I’ve actually been able to take it off (I actually get the Monday off in lieu). It’s not particularly celebrated, certainly not as much as Burns Night and given the air accident in Glasgow this year I don’t think there would be much appetite for street parties.  However, Burns Night has its own ritual and traditional food with its familiar haggis-neeps-tatties supper so I thought it would be worthwhile coming up with something that would celebrate Scottish cuisine combined with my love of cheese. I hereby present “The St Andrew’s Day Fondue”:

For the fondue you will require:

• Green Ginger Wine 280ml (essentially Crabbies but I went for the cheapo version from Aldi)
• Lockerbie Extra Mature Cheddar 200g (see the note about the salt)
• Glen Lochy Vintage Cheddar 250g (this is the clincher – 15 months old and about as strong as a Jakie’s armpit)
• 30ml Whisky (I used Famous Grouse because I’m not wasting a £30 a bottle of single malt in the cooking)
• 2 tbl lime juice (not strictly Scottish but I suppose there are loads of lime trees in Glasgow)
• Pepper
• Pinch of mixed spice
• Salt (use with caution - the Lockerbie cheddar was full of this so I didn’t add any extra)

For dipping:

• Kilted haggis (haggis wrapped in bacon – another Aldi purchase)
• Potato Scones
• Crispy breakfast rolls

Preparation:

1. Grate the cheese without shredding one’s knuckles.
2. Pour a glass of whisky – this can be the good stuff because it’s just for drinking.
3. Simmer ginger wine and lime in saucepan and gradually add the cheese.
4. Mix the cornflower, cheapo whisky, spice and pepper in a glass. Once all cheese has melted stir the mixture into the saucepan and continue stirring until it has thickened and is bubbling.
5. Serve with kilted haggis, rolls and potato scones.

For the authentic touch mix equal measure of the cheap whisky and ginger wine to create a “Whisky Mac” – Caledonian rocket fuel that is deceptively stronger than it tastes and enables time travel as you won’t remember the subsequent 24 hours.

So how does it taste? Well, the fondue itself tastes fantastic. The sweetness from the ginger wine really compliments the other flavours and makes this something quite unique as far as fondues go. The other dips – particularly the meat stuff was rather overkill. In fact, when I got the kilted haggis home I discovered that this was kilted black pudding so I bought some battered haggis as well. This rather disintegrated when dipped. I also had to buy a baguette from the CO-OP as we had accidentally used the breakfast rolls for breakfast. At the end I thought I’d end up doing an impression of Mr Creosote so I gave the After Eights a miss.

I wouldn’t recommend this every day as it contains a huge amount of saturated fat, salt, alcohol, none of your 5-a-day and approximately two million calories per serving. In fact, if you chuck in a packet of Regal Kingsize and a bar of tablet you will have pretty much covered all of the major Scottish food groups. But as an occasional treat I really would give the fondue mix another go. Needless to say I went on a 3 hour walk the next day to try and burn off my excesses.