sauces for fondue chinoise

In Switzerland, most families traditionally eat meat fondue (fondue chinoise) for Christmas.
Some have French fries to accompany this delicious fondue, others have just
brioche (bread), or rice and vegetables – you are completely free in the side
dishes. The most important thing however are the sauces. DON’T buy sauces, MAKE
them. You can spoil an entire Christmas if you buy these cheap supermarket
sauces, and it is so easy to be creative and make them yourself. 

Here are my two absolute must-have sauces for Christmas. You can make them also on normal
days, for meat dishes or to serve potatoes of any kind. Trust me: When you
serve French fries with my spicy cocktail sauce, you can no longer eat them
with ketchup!

Number 1: Spicy Cocktail

Ingredients:

-             2 egg yolks

-             1 egg white

-             2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard

-             1 splash of red wine vinegar (almost a small teaspoon)

-             2 – 3 dl of sunflower oil (never use olive oil, it spoils the entire sauce!)

-             2 table spoons of ketchup

-             1 teaspoon of cognac or brandy

-             Hot chilli or cayenne pepper (up to liking)

First of all, with a handheld blender, beat the egg white until stiff and set aside. In another
medium-sized bowl made of glass, add the egg yolks, mustard, some salt, cayenne pepper and vinegar and wait until all the ingredients have room temperature. Best is to take the eggs out of the fridge one hour before and then start the whole procedure.

Place the bowl on a wet cloth in order to “fix” it. With a whisk, start whisking the ingredients, and then slowly pour the oil, very little by little, and keep whisking continuously. If you want more sauce, just add more oil, you can use up to 2 or even 3dl, no worries. The mayonnaise should be thickening quickly, then poor more oil and keep whisking until you have used up all the oil.

Try the mayonnaise, add salt if necessary. Now add the ketchup and cognac, and whisk again to mix
it well. Now try again, you might have to add more salt, as the sweet ketchup asks for more and you will add more volume with the egg whites, so better add a bit more salt than necessary. In the end, just carefully fold in the stiff egg white (with a rubber spatula, NOT the whisk) to make the sauce smooth and a bit
lighter. Decorate with more cayenne pepper, up to liking.

Number 2: Banana-Curry

Ingredients:

-             2 bananas

-             2 tablespoons of mild mustard

-             6 big tablespoons of sour cream

-             Zest of half a lemon

-             2 teaspoons of mild curry powder

-             2 teaspoons of spicy curry powder

(use a good Indian curry, like tandoori masala, or garam masala, something real and spicy from the Asia shop)

At 180 degrees, place the bananas in the oven and bake them for about 20 minutes. They will be black on the outside, but that is not an issue! Peel them, put in a bowl and squash with a fork. Add the curry powders, some salt and the lemon zest and sieve into a new bowl. This is quite hard, alternatively you can use a handheld blender and just mix it, but I prefer to sieve it for a better and smoother texture.

Now add all the other ingredients and mix well together. Try the sauce and adjust seasoning, according to liking, with more spicy or mild curry as well as salt if necessary.

Decorate with curry powder. 

Now enjoy Christmas, don’t be shy, indulge, eat, drink and by jolly. Happy holidays!