[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":402},["ShallowReactive",2],{"recipe:alplermagronen":3,"recipe:country:switzerland":190},{"slug":4,"title":5,"nativeName":6,"pronunciation":7,"countrySlug":8,"region":9,"emoji":10,"summary":11,"intro":12,"story":13,"whyThis":14,"tips":19,"substitutions":26,"variations":39,"serveWith":49,"storage":51,"faq":52,"equipment":71,"baseServings":76,"prepMinutes":77,"cookMinutes":78,"difficulty":79,"course":80,"diet":82,"mainIngredients":84,"ingredients":89,"instructions":139,"nutrition":167,"images":176,"keywords":180,"publishedAt":188,"updatedAt":188,"authorSlug":189},"alplermagronen","Älplermagronen (Swiss Alpine Macaroni with Potato)","Älplermagronen","ELP-ler-ma-GRO-nen","switzerland","Central Switzerland and the Alps","🧅","Macaroni and potato boiled in one pot, bound with cream and alpine cheese, buried under dark fried onions and eaten with cold apple sauce alongside. Herdsmen's food.","Älplermagronen is macaroni and potato cooked together in the same pot, drained, then folded with cream and grated alpine cheese and topped with a heap of onions fried until they are dark and sweet. It is close to macaroni cheese and completely unlike it at the same time: the potato makes the whole dish softer and starchier, the alpine cheese is nuttier and saltier than cheddar, and the fried onions supply a bitter-sweet edge that cuts the richness. The other thing that makes it Swiss is the bowl of cold apple sauce served beside it, which sounds wrong and is not — the sweet acidity is what stops a very rich plate from becoming monotonous. One pot, twenty-five minutes, no technique to speak of.","The name translates as alpine herdsmen's macaroni, and the dish comes from the summer season on high pastures, when dairymen lived for months in stone huts with their cattle. What they had was unlimited milk, cream and cheese from their own work, potatoes that stored well, and dried pasta hauled up from the valley. Pasta reached Switzerland in quantity in the nineteenth century, and it was prized on the alp precisely because it did not spoil and cooked in minutes on a small fire. Boiling it in the same water as the potatoes was not a clever trick, it was the only sensible option when fuel and water both had to be carried.\n\nThe apple sauce has the same practical logic. Fruit compote kept without refrigeration, it provided the only acidity available at that altitude, and it broke up meal after meal of the same rich food. Swiss families still serve it and still put it on the side rather than mixed in, so each mouthful can be adjusted. Visitors are routinely sceptical and routinely converted somewhere around the third forkful.\n\nWhich cheese goes in depends entirely on where you are. Gruyère and Emmental are the usual answers, but any well-aged alpine cheese belongs — Sbrinz, Appenzeller, Bergkäse, or a local Alpkäse that never leaves its valley. The elements that do not change are the potato, the cream and the fried onions, and of those the onions matter most. They need to go well past golden, into deep brown, with the sugars caught and the edges almost frizzled, because that bitterness is what makes the dish taste like something more than pasta with cheese. Rushing them is the most common way to end up with a version that tastes like nothing in particular.",[15,16,17,18],"Staggered one-pot timing so the potato and the macaroni finish together instead of one turning to mush.","Onions taken genuinely dark, with visual signals for when to stop, since this is what carries the dish.","Uses the starchy cooking water to loosen the cheese sauce, so it stays creamy instead of seizing on the plate.","Includes a five-minute apple sauce, because the side is part of the recipe rather than an optional extra.",[20,21,22,23,24,25],"Cut the potatoes to roughly 2 cm dice so their cooking time lands near the pasta's. Bigger chunks stay raw in the middle, smaller ones dissolve.","Save a mugful of the starchy cooking water before draining. It is the difference between a glossy sauce and a claggy one.","Fry the onions in a wide pan over medium heat for a full 20 minutes. High heat gives you burnt edges around raw centres, not sweetness.","Grate the cheese fine and add it off the heat, in handfuls, stirring between. Dumped in over a flame it clumps and turns oily.","Do not skip the apple sauce and do not stir it in. Cold, sharp and on the side is how the dish is built to be eaten.","Use a well-aged cheese with real character. A young mild cheese leaves the whole pot tasting of little more than cream.",[27,31,35],{"original":28,"swap":29,"note":30},"Gruyère or alpine cheese","Aged Emmental, Comté, Beaufort, Bergkäse or a sharp mature cheddar","You want something aged, firm and nutty that melts into cream. Mature cheddar is not Swiss but it works well; pre-grated bagged cheese does not, because the anti-caking starch turns the sauce grainy.",{"original":32,"swap":33,"note":34},"Heavy cream","Half cream and half whole milk, or evaporated milk","The dish is traditionally very rich, but cutting the cream with milk lightens it without breaking the sauce. Evaporated milk is a common Swiss shortcut and is remarkably stable.",{"original":36,"swap":37,"note":38},"Macaroni","Penne, ditalini or any short tubular pasta","Short tubes hold the sauce and sit well against the potato cubes. Long pasta is wrong here — it tangles and refuses to mix evenly with the potato.",[40,43,46],{"name":41,"description":42},"With bacon","Diced bacon or speck rendered in the pan before the onions, then scattered over the top with them. Common in valley restaurants and hard to argue with.",{"name":44,"description":45},"Baked Alplermagronen","Tipped into a buttered dish, topped with extra cheese and baked at 200 C for 15 minutes until blistered and browned in patches. Makes it a better dish for a crowd.",{"name":47,"description":48},"With pears instead of apples","Some cantons serve a pear compote or dried pear on the side, which is sweeter and more perfumed than apple sauce.",[50],"Cold apple sauce on the side of every plate, and a green salad with a sharp vinaigrette if you want the meal to feel less like a mountain hut.","Keeps 3 days refrigerated in a sealed container, though the pasta and potato absorb the sauce and it stiffens considerably. Reheat in a pan over low heat with a good splash of milk, stirring until it loosens and steams, or bake it covered at 180 C for 20 minutes. Fry fresh onions for the top rather than reheating the old ones, which turn soft and lose their point. It does not freeze well — the potato goes grainy and the sauce separates.",[53,56,59,62,65,68],{"question":54,"answer":55},"Why is there apple sauce with macaroni and cheese?","Because the dish is extremely rich and the alpine kitchen had no other source of acidity. Cold, tart apple compote resets the palate between forkfuls the way a pickle does with a fatty sandwich. It is served on the side rather than mixed in so each person can take as much as they want, and in Switzerland it is not optional — a plate of Alplermagronen without it looks unfinished.",{"question":57,"answer":58},"Can I really cook the potatoes and pasta in the same pot?","Yes, and that is the traditional method. Start the potato dice first and add the macaroni partway through so both finish at the same moment. Doing it this way also gives you cooking water loaded with starch from both, which helps the cheese sauce emulsify. Just cut the potatoes to an even 2 cm so they cook predictably.",{"question":60,"answer":61},"Which cheese should I use?","A well-aged alpine cheese: Gruyere, aged Emmental, Appenzeller, Sbrinz or a mountain Bergkase. Comte and Beaufort are excellent non-Swiss equivalents. The essential quality is age — you need a firm, nutty, salty cheese, because a young mild one disappears entirely into the cream. Grate it yourself rather than buying it pre-grated.",{"question":63,"answer":64},"How dark should the fried onions be?","Considerably darker than most recipes suggest. Aim for a deep chestnut brown with crisp frizzled edges, which takes about 20 minutes over medium heat with regular stirring. Pale golden onions taste sweet but flat, and they will not stand up to the cheese. Stop just before any of them turn black, since burnt onion turns the whole plate bitter.",{"question":66,"answer":67},"Why did my cheese sauce turn grainy or oily?","The cheese got too hot. Take the pot off the heat before adding it, stir it in a handful at a time, and let the residual warmth do the melting. Adding cheese to a boiling pot forces the fat out of the proteins. Pre-grated cheese coated in anti-caking starch is the other common cause and is worth avoiding.",{"question":69,"answer":70},"Is Alplermagronen a vegetarian dish?","The classic version is, as it contains only pasta, potato, dairy and onions. Restaurant versions often add bacon or speck, so check when ordering. If you keep a strict vegetarian diet, note that some traditional alpine cheeses are made with animal rennet, so look for a vegetarian-labelled hard cheese if that matters to you.",[72,73,74,75],"Large pot","Wide frying pan","Box grater","Small saucepan for the apple sauce",4,15,30,"easy",[81],"main",[83],"vegetarian",[85,86,87,88],"pasta","potato","gruyere","onion",[90,95,98,103,107,109,114,118,123,126,131,135],{"ref":86,"qty":91,"unit":92,"name":93,"group":94},400,"g","floury potatoes, peeled and in 2 cm dice","For the pot",{"ref":85,"qty":96,"unit":92,"name":97,"group":94},300,"macaroni or other short tubular pasta",{"ref":99,"qty":100,"unit":101,"name":102,"group":94},"heavy-cream",200,"ml","heavy cream",{"ref":104,"qty":105,"unit":101,"name":106,"group":94},"milk",100,"whole milk",{"ref":87,"qty":100,"unit":92,"name":108,"group":94},"Gruyère or other aged alpine cheese, finely grated",{"ref":110,"qty":111,"unit":112,"name":113,"group":94},"nutmeg",1,"pinch","freshly grated nutmeg",{"qty":115,"unit":116,"name":117,"group":94},null,"to taste","salt and freshly ground black pepper",{"ref":88,"qty":119,"unit":120,"name":121,"group":122},3,"piece","large onions, halved and thinly sliced","For the onions",{"ref":124,"qty":125,"unit":92,"name":124,"group":122},"butter",40,{"ref":127,"qty":128,"unit":92,"name":129,"group":130},"apple",600,"tart apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped","For the apple sauce",{"qty":132,"unit":133,"name":134,"group":130},2,"tbsp","sugar, or to taste",{"ref":136,"qty":137,"unit":120,"name":138,"group":130},"lemon",0.5,"lemon, juiced",[140,145,150,153,157,160,164],{"title":141,"text":142,"timerSeconds":143,"tip":144},"Make the apple sauce first","Put {qty:apple} of chopped apple in a small saucepan with the sugar, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of water. Cover and cook over medium-low heat for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until the pieces collapse when pressed. Mash roughly, taste for sweetness and leave to cool completely.",840,"It should stay noticeably tart. Sweet apple sauce loses the job it is there to do.",{"title":146,"text":147,"timerSeconds":148,"tip":149},"Fry the onions slowly","Melt the butter in a wide pan over medium heat, add the sliced onions with a pinch of salt and cook for 18 to 20 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes. They will go limp, then golden, then deep chestnut brown with crisp frizzled edges. Take them off the heat at that point and set aside.",1140,"If they colour before ten minutes, the heat is too high. Turn it down and add a splash of water to reset the pan.",{"title":151,"text":152,"timerSeconds":96},"Start the potatoes","Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a rolling boil and add the potato dice. Cook for 5 minutes, until the outsides have softened slightly but a knife still meets clear resistance in the centre.",{"title":154,"text":155,"timerSeconds":156},"Add the pasta","Tip the macaroni straight into the same pot and cook for the time on the packet, usually 8 to 10 minutes, until the pasta is just tender and the potato yields completely to a fork but has not disintegrated.",540,{"title":158,"text":159},"Drain and build the sauce","Reserve a mugful of the cooking water, then drain. Return the empty pot to low heat, pour in the cream and milk and warm them until they steam and just begin to bubble at the edge, about 2 minutes.",{"title":161,"text":162,"tip":163},"Fold everything together","Take the pot off the heat, tip the pasta and potato back in, and add the grated cheese in three handfuls, stirring between each until it melts into a smooth glossy sauce. Loosen with splashes of the reserved cooking water until it coats everything and flows slowly off the spoon.","Off the heat is not a suggestion. Cheese stirred into a simmering pot splits into strings and oil.",{"title":165,"text":166},"Season and serve","Grate in the nutmeg, then season with salt and plenty of black pepper — taste first, as aged cheese carries a lot of salt. Spoon into warm bowls, pile the dark onions on top, and put a spoonful of cold apple sauce on the side of every plate.",{"calories":168,"protein":169,"carbs":170,"fat":171,"fiber":172,"sugar":173,"sodium":174,"estimated":175},790,27,88,36,7,22,720,true,[177],{"src":178,"alt":179},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Falplermagronen\u002Fhero.svg","Bowl of creamy macaroni with potato and melted alpine cheese under dark fried onions, apple sauce beside it",[181,182,183,184,185,186,187],"älplermagronen","alpine macaroni","swiss","apple sauce","gruyère","one pot","comfort 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Scraped Melted Cheese with Potatoes)","Raclette du Valais","Valais",25,[81],[83,236],[86],[329],{"src":330,"alt":331},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fswiss-raclette\u002Fhero.svg","Molten raclette cheese being scraped from a half-wheel over hot boiled potatoes and cornichons",[333,334,296,183,335,336,337],"raclette","valais","potatoes","winter meal","communal dining",{"slug":339,"title":340,"nativeName":341,"countrySlug":8,"region":342,"baseServings":76,"prepMinutes":281,"cookMinutes":78,"restMinutes":174,"difficulty":79,"course":343,"diet":346,"mainIngredients":347,"images":348,"keywords":352,"publishedAt":188,"updatedAt":188,"authorSlug":189},"rosti","Rösti (Crisp Swiss Grated Potato Cake)","Rösti","Bern and German-speaking Switzerland",[344,345],"side","breakfast",[83,236],[86,124],[349],{"src":350,"alt":351},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Frosti\u002Fhero.svg","Golden crisp Swiss rösti potato cake in a cast-iron pan, cut into a wedge to show the soft 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