Poutine

Quebec's chips under a hot brown gravy and fresh cheese curds, added in that order so the curds soften without melting away

Origin: Centre-du-Québec & Quebec

From the journey of Potato.

Poutine is three things and the order matters: hot chips, fresh cheese curds, and a light brown gravy poured over the top so that the curds warm and soften without dissolving. Get the sequence wrong, or use the wrong cheese, and it is chips and gravy with something rubbery in it. The curds are the non-negotiable part. They must be fresh, ideally less than a day old, and they must squeak against the teeth, which is a property of the protein structure in curd that has not yet been aged and which disappears within a couple of days or after refrigeration. Quebec depanneurs sell them in bags marked with the day they were made. Grated mozzarella is the usual substitute outside Quebec and it is not the same dish. Several towns in the Centre-du-Québec claim the invention and the claims are not settled. Warwick puts it at Fernand Lachance's Le Lutin qui rit around 1957, where a customer is said to have asked for curds in his bag of chips; Drummondville credits Jean-Paul Roy at Le Roy Jucep, which registered a trademark asserting itself as the inventor of the gravy-curd-chip combination in the mid-1960s. Both are plausible, both towns are serious about it, and the dispute has been running for sixty years without resolution. What is not disputed is the region and the decade. The gravy is a light brown sauce rather than a beef one, traditionally somewhere between a chicken and a veal velouté darkened with a roux, thinner than a British gravy and seasoned with pepper. It has to be genuinely hot when it hits the plate, because the only heat the curds get is what the gravy brings.

Ingredients

Chips

1.2 kg floury potatoes, such as Russet, peeled and cut into 1cm chips
2 litres neutral oil, for frying
1 tsp salt

To assemble

400 g fresh cheese curds, at room temperature

Gravy

40 g butter
40 g plain flour
400 ml chicken stock
300 ml beef stock
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 salt, to taste

Method

Rinse the cut chips in cold water until it runs clear, then soak them for twenty minutes and dry them thoroughly.
Make the gravy: melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook the roux over a medium heat for four or five minutes until it smells nutty and has gone the colour of light toast.
Take the roux to a genuine blond, not a white one. Poutine gravy is brown and mild, and an undercooked roux tastes of raw flour.
Whisk in both stocks a little at a time, bring to a simmer, and cook for fifteen minutes until it coats a spoon lightly.
Season with the vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and salt, and keep it at a bare simmer. It must be very hot at the moment of serving.
Take the cheese curds out of the fridge at least half an hour ahead. Cold curds will not soften and will sit in the gravy like erasers.
Heat the oil to 150°C and blanch the chips in batches for six minutes, until cooked through but still pale. Lift them out and spread them to cool for at least ten minutes.
Raise the oil to 190°C and fry them again in batches for two to three minutes until deep gold and rigid.
The double fry is what keeps them crisp under a wet sauce. Once-fried chips collapse within a minute of the gravy landing.
Drain, salt at once, and pile into warm bowls.
Scatter the curds over the hot chips and leave them for thirty seconds to begin softening.
Ladle the boiling gravy over the top and serve immediately, with more pepper.

Notes

Fresh squeaky curds at room temperature are the whole dish; grated mozzarella gives something else. Double fry the chips, and salt them the moment they leave the oil. The gravy must be at a simmer when it is poured, because it is the only heat the curds receive. Order matters: chips, then curds, then gravy. Do not assemble in advance; poutine has a working life of about four minutes and everyone in Quebec knows it.

The Gastrographer

Name: Poutine
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Centre-du-Québec & Quebec
Ingredients: 1.2 kg floury potatoes, such as Russet, peeled and cut into 1cm chips; 2 litres neutral oil, for frying; 1 tsp salt; 400 g fresh cheese curds, at room temperature; 40 g butter; 40 g plain flour; 400 ml chicken stock; 300 ml beef stock; 1 tbsp cider vinegar; 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper; 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce; 1 salt, to taste

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control