Poutine

I'll bet thar Indian paneer cubes would work beautifully for the curds.

I only cared a little for poutine until I tried lobster poutine at a now-defunct lobster shack in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada, called Ship to Shore. It was awesome, and it was the only time I ordered this dish. I will be on the East Coast this summer, where I will pick up some authentic squeaky cheese. I plan to adapt this recipe to try and recreate that awesome Ship to Shore version.

I risk having to give up my Canadian passport by telling you this, but I'm in the boonies in California, and I have had the opportunity to make a completely reasonable poutine with frozen fries, Aldi cheese curds, and--believe it or not--Bisto vegetable gravy granules, available on Amazon. The Bisto gravy is vegan, so your vegan friends can still have fries and gravy. It's good gravy! I say this as someone who lived in Montréal for 8 years and ate my weight in poutine several times over.

Excellent cheese curds at Cheese Factory in West Jefferson, NC. Toujours frais!

Try with spaghetti sauce and roquefort cheese (Blue cheese), or gravy with wine and lobster & foie gras, or German sausage and camembert cheese, or steak, cheddar and cognac sauce !!!

A tip I learned from a friend from Montreal.... If you can't find cheese curds, cut up mozzarella strings into pieces. It has a similar consistency and melting point.

Cheese on the bottom? Unheard of. (But worth trying. For science.) They won’t be quite as fresh as day-of, unrefrigerated cheese curds straight from the dairy, but some Wisconsin cheesemakers (like Gardner’s, which I recommend) will overnight excellent cheese curds to US locations and they often arrive still squeaky. (In Quebec, we often call curds or fromage en grains “le fromage squick-squick”—a beautiful onomatopoeia if ever there was one!)

We love poutine and I was so excited to find this recipe! Was short on time, but wanted to try it out, so used frozen french fries tonight . I shook them up in a bag with olive oil first, so they were nice and crisp. The poutine turned out surprisingly well. Love the gravy. I’m looking forward to trying it next time with actual potatoes.

The secret of best poutine is the freshness of the curds. They are best when acquired the day they were made or in the last day or 2. Also, Québec stores do not refrigerate cheese curds and keek them at room temperature until consumption. The refrigeration process alter the humidity balance and hinder the experience. Finally, fresh made fries are also key.

Or you can parboil the fries first. Basically boil them to 65-70% done. It will reduce the starch in about 6-8 minutes vs an hour plus, and allows you to fry them in oil only once. Which I find faster and less of a hassle when frying potatoes. I dare a taste tester to find any difference.

Thanks for the gravy recipe, it is delicious! Here in Mtl, the gravy is often made with vegetable stock, perhaps so everyone can eat the poutine (well, you do have to find faux-mage if you’re vegan). Real fresh curd doesn’t have to be brought to room temp, because it has never been in a fridge. You can tell, ‘cause it squeaks when you bite it. I didn’t remember to put curds on the bottom, I’ve never had it that way. Someone tell me if it’s better like that!

Quick shortcut: for homemade French fries without waiting overnight, sprinkle white granulated sugar on the cut, prepared potatoes in a colander. Leave them like that in your sink. In less than an hour, the sugar will have absorbed most of the starch. Rinse and dry the potatoes immediately before roasting.

Quebec Poutine is made with vegetable stock.