One of my favorite places to eat whenever I go back home is The Last Unicorn in Waterville, Maine. The restaurant changed ownership about ten years ago, and the new owners have kept all the staple dishes. They have maintained an ultra-high quality—a rarity when someone buys an established eatery in this day of age. The cheese dip is our favorite appetizer and its same quality and taste as it always has been. We are only able to make it up to visit once a year, and even though we try to make it here on our trip, we are not always able to make it here. So, after missing The Last Unicorn the last couple of years on our journey to Maine, I decided to attempt to make their cheese dip. To my surprise, it was a very successful attempt.
The Last Unicorn cheese dip is an ultra-secret recipe. The owners don’t even share it with employees or the cooks in the kitchen. The only tip I could find was a blog post that shared the four kinds of cheese used to make the dip. Those four kinds of cheese are manchego, asiago, cheddar, and gouda. The tricky part for me was that manchego was hard for me to find. I’m not sure if it’s just hard to find locally or if I needed to go to Whole Food. That wat I would have been able to see cheeses. But I did not have this luxury, so I had to find an acceptable replacement. After some research, I discovered that European Cheddar Cheese is an immediate replacement, but I was skeptical that I would get the same flavor profile.
When I selected the cheeses ( I went with all raw block cheese but chose a sharp White Vermont Cheddar and the replacement Italian White Cheddar), I headed home to give this dip a try. I had to sit down and think about the flavor profile of their cheese dip. That way, I could get all prepped in my kitchen to make this properly. After thinking, I gathered everything I thought I would need to create this cheese dip. Try out the recipe below and let me know in the comments what you think. I know that it’s not exact, but I feel that the taste was about as close as you can get without knowing exactly how it put together.
The Last Unicorn - Knockoff
Notes
Substitute Flour with 1/2 as much Gluten-Free Flour to make the dip Gluten-Free.
Ingredients
- 100g of Gouda
- 100g of Asiago
- 100g of Vermont White Cheddar
- 110g of European Style White Cheddar
- 1 Teaspoon of Flour
- 2 Tablespoons of Salted Butter
- 40g of White Onion
- 1/4 Cup of Heavy Cream
- 1/4 Teaspoon of Onion Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon of Garlic Powder
Instructions
- Cut all the cheese into little chunks.
- Place butter and onions into a double boiler and cook onions until they are translucent.
- Add flour and stir until all the liquid is absorbed.
- Add-in each type of cheese to the double boiler a few pieces allowing the cheese to melt a little at a time until 1/2 the cheese is in the double boiler.
- Once half the cheese has melted and the rest of the cheese.
- Slowly add in the heavy cream and stir until all the cheese is melted and incorporated.
- Mix in both the onion powder and garlic powder.
- Remove cheese from double boiler and place it into an oven-safe dish and broil on high until the top is golden brown.
- Serve with your favorite toasted bread.
- We used 1/2 inch sliced Cuban bread toasted, and it was amazing!
**EDIT** I lost my other photo’s for this recipe…. I will remake it and post more photos soon.
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