Simple Swiss cooking at it's best

​Sometimes the simplest of recipes are just fantastic. So often people want to overcomplicate a recipe and confuse the taste buds. Here are 3 simple recipes for a soup, a salad and molten cheese over boiled potatoes for an easy winter supper.

Of course there is nothing tastier than home baked bread direct from the oven enjoyed with a Lauterbrunnen Berg Käse (Mountain cheese). 

The world thinks "Fondue" when they ponder Swiss Cuisine. It is still fun to dunk rustic country bread into melted cheeses. Like a delicious molten slow cooked mix of Gruyère and chemerin cheeses, infused with lashings of wine and garlic, bubbled over an open flame. Paired with white wine and chased with schnapps or tea for an epic winter meal.

Easy Macaroni salad (Hörnlisalat)
 To serve 8 people.
 Ingredients
4 eggs
7 pickles
6 Cups elbow pasta (Hörnli)
220 gram Cheese Emmentaler
2 Hot peppers (red)
120 gram ham
10 pieces onions

​Ingredients for the dressing. This dressing is also delicious on a green salad.
2 Garlic cloves
1 dash herb vinegar
4 dessert spoons mayonnaise
2 dessert spoons   natural yoghurt
1 dessert spoon olive oil
1 pinch paprika
1 pinch Salatgewürz
1 dessert spoon chives
1 dessert spoon Mustard, mild
1 shake of Tabasco
 
For the Hörnlisalat boil the pasta/ Hörnli in plenty of salted water until crispy and quench with cold water.
Next boil the eggs in a saucepan - depending on the size of the eggs, simmer for about 8-10 minutes in water.
Then chop the cheese, chilli peppers, gherkins, boiled eggs and ham into small cubes and place in a large salad bowl.
 
For the dressing: mix the mayonnaise, the mustard, the spices, the herbs, Tabasco, yoghurt, vinegar and oil well. Add the chopped onion and the peeled and chopped garlic cloves.
 
Add the Hörnli to the salad bowl and mix with dressing.
Let the salad soak in the fridge briefly (for about 20 minutes) then serve with a crusty bread loaf (not toast bread).

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Simple Soup. A broth with Flädli that makes a great starter. (Flädli is a thin pancake or crepe cut into pieces)
​Ingredients for 4 servings
70 grams butter
2 eggs
100 grams Flour
250 ml   milk
1 litre beef (or chicken) broth
1 pinch salt
1 dessert spoons cut Chives
 
Preparing the Flädli:
In a bowl, add flour, milk, eggs and salt to a dough and let it swell for 15 minutes.
Bake in a pan with heated butter 8 thin flädli / crepes, drain on a plate with kitchen paper and let cool.Roll up the flädli, cut into thin slices and spread on four soup plates.
(or you can buy pre-made Flädli in Co op)
 Then Boil the beef or chicken  stock and pour over the cut flädli and sprinkle with chives.
 Serve with a crusty bread loaf.

Melted Mont-d’Or Vacherin cheese over boiled potatoes is also a simple favourite. Only in Switzerland does cheese have seasonality. And between September and April, when the mountains are snow capped, Mont-d’Or Vacherin is seen in cheese shops, as it has for over a century. This soft, pungent cow’s milk cheese is freshly made from the villages around the Jura region. Covered with white wine and garlic, then baked at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes in its own round wooden box, produces a  gooey, creamy cheese, to serve warm over boiled potatoes. Tasty.

​Remove the lid and any cellophane or plastic from the round cheese box.
Place the lid underneath the box to provide a base and to prevent any leakage.
Set the cheese back in its box on top of a piece of heavy-duty foil and bring the foil up snugly against the sides of the box but not over the top.
Insert a few slivers of garlic in the top and drizzle white wine over the crust.
Bake the Vacherin at 180 degrees Celsius for around 20 minutes or until it looks plumply.
Remove the box from the oven and spoon the molten treasure over boiled potatoes and accompany with pickles.