I was looking for a Canadian dish for the next round of Formula 1 Foods and remembered going to a Canada Day party last year (the host wasn’t Canadian, she just liked the excuse for a themed party!) where poutine was served. I wasn’t particularly taken with it as it seemed to just be Bisto on oven chips, but actually there is more to it than that. It’s more of a sauce that’s similar to gravy, and then has cheese curds on top; it’s typical diner food in Canada and is apparently popular at hockey games. I don’t know whether they eat poutine at the Formula 1 Grand Prix – I doubt it but you never know!
I found a great recipe online that also involved making the chips yourself but I didn’t have time to do this, and my boyfriend doesn’t like homemade chips, so I used oven chips. I also had to look up what cheese curds are, and found that they are the solid parts of soured milk that comes from when it’s being processed into cheese – and according to Wikipedia, they are often used in cooking or even eaten alone in Canada or the US. I have got a cheese making kit that I got for Christmas which would have been the perfect thing to use, as I could actually make cheese curds. But I hadn’t read the recipes and didn’t realise that to make the cheeses I needed either cream or full fat milk and I only had skimmed – and I’m so busy at the moment I knew that if I put off making my poutine for another week I probably wouldn’t get around to it. I did read online that grated cheese is an acceptable alternative so that’s what I used. I only realised much later that cottage cheese is actually a curd, though I didn’t have any of that in the house either!
The poutine recipe I used is from the Food Network:
As I mentioned I skipped the part of the recipe for making the chips and went straight in with the sauce. I used one pan to fry the onion and garlic, and added both chicken and beef stock, ketchup, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. In another pan I melted butter and stirred in the flour to make a roux, then carefully whisked in the stock mixture.
It was thicker than I had expected – it thickened as I kept the pan over a low heat – so by the time the chips were ready, I could spoon rather than pour it on. I was highly dubious at the thought of chips with gravy but this sauce had a real depth of flavour and a hint of barbecue – it was really lovely. I couldn’t tell from the picture whether the cheese was supposed to be underneath or on top of the sauce so I did a bit of both – and ended up going back for seconds of sauce!
I’m entering this in Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I created to share dishes inspired by the location of each Formula 1 Grand Prix race. This weekend it’s taking place in Canada.
