Fondue-le vous mangez avec moi, c'est soir?

Dinner for March 9th, 2007- supersounds of the 70's retro flashback time!

Wanting to get some use out of the fondue set my mother gave me for Christmas, I figured it would make an interesting Friday-night romantic date meal. The challenge? How to do a low fat, low cal fondue that's still fun and tasty. Solution? Fondue "bourguignonne" style, which means that the little pieces of food are cooked in hot broth instead of dipper in molten cheese. Tasty and much, much easier on the waistline.

Fondue:
The fondue cooking broth is made of 1 large container of organic vegetable broth, 1/2 cup sliced onions, 2 tablespoons minced garlic, 2 bay leaves, and a palmful of an exotic spice rub I picked up at the Fairway called "Bed Of Roses Heavenly Bouquet". It's mainly garlic, sea salt, saffron threads, paprika, chile peppers and rose petals. If you don't have a funky spice blend in the back of your cabinet just dying for this kind of opportunity, this is a great time to pull out all of those weird spices you never use (curry powder, chinese five-spice powder, cardamom, ancho chiles, etc) and drop them in the broth. This will give you great, unique flavoring for your fondue without adding extra fat or calories.

I let the broth simmer for about half an hour, until flavors had married and the kitchen smelled amazing. Add a little water if your broth seems to be evaporating, ideally you want to have about three cups of as much concentrated flavor as possible.

Fondue Fixins:
1/2 lb pork loin, cut into small disks
1/2 lb tuna steak, cut into bite-size pieces
1 - 2 cups shitake and baby bella mushrooms
1 -2 cups squash and zucchini, sliced into thin disks

The meat was treated to two different marinades early in the morning. Separating the meat into small portions, each given their own marinade, can add some fun variety to the meal as well as really kick up the flavor. I divided the meats into three separate portions for three different flavors. If you're anything like me, you also have a bunch of bottles of funny dressings or marinades that have been gifted to you or picked up on a whim-once again, this is a great opportunity to pull those out! One potion was marinaded in some of the sczhezuan low-cal stir-fry sauce I bought for a meal later in the week. The next was rolled in the same spice rub mentioned above (thickly crusted). Finally, the last portion was left to soak in Carolina Treet BBQ-sauce.

With your broth prepared, veggies chopped and meat soaked, all that's left to do is assemble the fondue kit and get your broth bubbling! Usually, the veggies will need to cook in the broth for 5-7 minutes to get the full flavor benefit. I suggest doing a "test piece" of meat first, to time how long the cooking process for each piece will take (there's nothing worse than biting in to a piece of undercooked pork!). Don't worry if pieces fall off, since you can always retrieve them later and they'll both make the broth tastier and be delicious once fished out!

Calorie Countdown:

Cals from Broth: Negligible
1 cup mushrooms: 15 cals
1 cup squash/zucchini: 20 cals
1/4 lb pork loin: 188 cals
1/4 lb tuna steak: 124 cals
1 tbps Schezuan sauce: 25 cals
2 tbsp Spice Rub: negligible
2 tbsp Carolina Treet : 40 cals

grand total: 412 calories