Sunday, September 13, 2015

The Time I Made Poutine for Labor Day

 

Since how else would you want to celebrate an American holiday by making an iconic Canadian snack and drinking Canadian beer?

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Irony aside, remember when we were on the hunt for the best poutine in Montreal?  Well since then, we haven’t found a comparable poutine in the States.  We’ve come across some poor photocopies at some questionable diners and bars, where they use a brown gravy you’d find on meatloaf, and (gasp!) mozzarella cheese.

So when J. and I came across fresh cheese curds at the farmer’s market, we thought it would be a fun project to make poutine at home.  And by “we,” I mean, mostly me. J. did help with the eating, though.  And washing the dishes.

When we got home, I did my “research” (i.e. google search for poutine recipes), and found this recipe from the Food Network, seemed to be the most straightforward, and authentic.

And then I got to work.  First cutting up the potatoes into french fries….

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(The recipe says to cut them into 1/4 inch slices.  I do not have a mandoline or the patience to do this with a knife so I cut them more into 1/2 inch slices. This yielded not as crispy fries as I would have liked.  Next time, I will cut the potatoes thinner.  Or buy a mandoline.)

And then I soaked the potatoes in cold water for a few hours.  (According to the recipe, this makes them nice and crispy.)

I went off to do some boring lawyerly work at a coffee shop. (Zzzzz….)

And came home to start making the gravy!

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Here is another point where I strayed from the recipe.  The recipe says to let the gravy simmer for 20 minutes.  I found that after 20 minutes it was still very thin.  So I let it simmer for close to an hour.  Which made for a very tasty, but thick sauce that was hard to strain the peppercorns and onion bits. I also felt that it did not yield enough sauce at the end. If I were to do this again, I would probably strain the gravy after 20 minutes and then bring it back to a simmer to thicken up, but not as thick as it was this time.

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What the gravy looked like after simmering for close to an hour.

While the gravy was simmering, I deep fried the potatoes in batches and drained them on paper towels….

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And then fried them again for extra crispiness.

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Lightly fried up some chopped up Canadian bacon.  (This was an addition that I added from the recipe).

And plated it up!

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Another note for the next time is, to figure out how to keep the fries warm so that the cheese curds will become nice and melty. 

Since there will be a next time.

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Because how could you not try this again?