Raclette comes from Valais, the Alpine canton of the Rhône valley, where herders melted the cut face of a cheese wheel in front of the fire and scraped the soft layer onto bread or potatoes. Melting cheese this way is recorded in Valais as early as the sixteenth century, and the name comes from the French racler, to scrape. At Swiss markets, fairs and ski resorts, a half wheel still sits under a glowing heater while a cook scrapes portions onto paper plates for a queue that never seems to shorten.

At home, an electric raclette grill with its little pans is a fixture in many Swiss kitchens, but an ordinary oven broiler does the job very well. The accompaniments are part of the ritual: potatoes boiled in their skins, tiny pickled gherkins and onions, and a grind of pepper. It is food for standing around and talking, exactly like a long afternoon in a grandstand.

The potatoes

Ingredients

• 2 lb (900 g) small waxy potatoes
• 1 tablespoon fine salt

The melted cheese

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 lb (800 g) Raclette cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika

To serve

Ingredients

• 1 cup (150 g) cornichons
• 1 cup (150 g) pickled silverskin onions
• 4 oz (115 g) cured air dried beef or ham

More from Switzerland