Auld Lang Syne Fondue

Author Notes

Growing up, I never knew a New Year's Eve to be complete without my mom's fondue. Thankfully, NYE did not involve keys in a fishbowl or other offending 1970's behavior as always mom kept it healthy by using broth instead of the traditional oil. Reading a Japanese cookbook in the 80's, I discovered my mother was doing a sort of shabu-shabu. Every year, I looked forward to using those long handled (with a colored end tip) sharp forks that speared up strips of chicken, beef, and shrimp and dipped them in barbecue, hot mustard, or gussied-up soy sauce. I rarely waited for the fondued protein to be even remotely cooled off before sticking it burning hot into my mouth. Served alongside cocktails and Burgundy wine for the adults, I enjoyed this with a kid's cocktail my dad made especially for me (and any other kid) with orange juice, grenadine, maraschino cherry juice, and ice all shaken up, just like the adults. The whole experience made me feel warm and sunny inside and out. My mom used a fondue pot with sterno but I use my electric one now (Rival brand). With the sauces, mom made her own hot mustard and soy sauce mixture. In the recent past, I have made the barbecue sauce by combining some of the hot mustard and soy sauce mixture with some chili sauce and honey. Use your favorite recipe or brand. —testkitchenette

Test Kitchen Notes

We tested both versions of testkitchenette's fun recipe for fondue—one using chicken broth and the other using peanut oil—and give the nod to the one using peanut oil*, which really brought out the flavors of the shrimp, chicken, and beef. We had a lot of fun sitting around the pot, arranging the tasty dippers (testkitchenette's hot mustard, soy, and BBQ sauces, plus a sour cream and horseradish dip, and a curried mayo at the insistence of two of our testers) on our plates and then cooking the chicken, beef, or shrimp and dipping it into the different sauces. It was very easy on the hosts!! I would do this again for a gathering of four to six people.

One of our guinea pig testers has a peanut allergy, so we created a separate fondue using clarified butter, to which I would also give two enthusiastic thumbs up!
—wssmom