Fondue is French and means melted. In cooking fondue usually means a pot of melted cheese that you can dip pieces of bread, or something else in. In Italy they also use it to mean a creamy sauce – or simply a cream – of melted cheese that you can serve with something.
An excellent way to present truffles is to serve it on a fondu with a poached egg, so, egg in a creamy cheese sauce. It may not sound very fancy but it can be very good.
You can do it with all sorts of cheese, fontina, toma, gorgonzola, to mention some of the Italian cheeses. You can of course use many other types of cheeses to.
To do it you start with melting the cheese in milk in a bowl over very moderate heat, a bain-marie is to be advised. Then you add some egg yolks to make it thicken and maybe also some corn starch.
Put the poached egg on a soup plate add the creamy fondue sauce. Grind some black pepper on it. Put a heap of truffles shaving on top and serve with a piece of bread.
Voilà a simple starter for a Piedmont menu.
Making a fondue
Here is a video showing how to make the fondue and how to present it on the plate. (Then follows a video on how to do the poached egg.)
Ingredients:
- 100 g fontina cheese
- 100 g milk
- 1 egg yolk
- Some corn starch (maizena) if needed
Soak the cheese in milk over-night (not counted above). Discard the milk. Prepare the fondue by melting the cheese in milk in a bain-marie. When the cheese is melted, add the yolk and continue whisking. Add additional yolk and/or corn starch if needed. Continue whisking until it has thickened.
Serve with poached egg and truffles.
Making a poached egg with a trick
Here is how you make the poached egg. You can poach it in a traditional way or you can use a little trick by poaching it in a plastic film. Just be sure you cut the film very carefully when opening.
Put the poached egg in a soup plate. Pour the cheese fondue creamy sauce around it. Shave plenty of truffles – white if you have – on top of it and serve.
The presentation was done by Giovanni Naviglia of the Terra cooking school in Roddi in Piedmont (La scuola internazionale di cucina del Tartufo biando d’Alba): www.terra.academy
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