Yes yes, I know, it is a no brainer my 10 month old baby cousin could probably do it. But this will be a recipe and product review post! So as we all know, or don't know for some of us, poutine is fries with cheese curds drenched in hot gravy. The gravy must be really hot so that it can melt the cheese curds and make your fries into a gooey stringy mess. Yum, writing about this is making me crave some.
A few weeks back, Buy-Low Foods had their Western Family french fried potatoes on sale (2 packs for $3, what a deal!) So I went and grabbed a pack of their crinkle cut and shoestring fries. I used the package of crincle cut fries to make the poutin the first time around. Since I was making it for lunch for my mom and brother as well, I used the whole package. Following the instructions exactly as per the package, I preheated the oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit, laid out the fries into a single layer on a baking sheet, and stuck them in the oven for 20 minutes.
For the gravy, I actually stumbled upon the No Name brand poutine sauce the other day at Superstore. I was planning to just buy gravy mix and make my own, but since this is specifically for poutine, I decided to get this instead. It is much cheaper too! Gravy mix is usually $1+ but the can of sauce was less than $1. This I just opened up, stuck it into a pan over medium heat with constant stirring until it was really hot.
Cheese curds I find are a little harder to find. I got these at IGA as I read from someone online that they sold them. However, boy are they expensive!! That package there cost me almost $8!! But then I only used up half of the box for 1 kg of fries, so I guess it is alright. But if IGA did not have any or if I am short on money next time, I think I might just stick with regular cheddar or mozzarella cheese.
So to assemble, you scoop some fries into a bowl, sprinkle some cheese curds over top, and drench the whole bowl in gravy making sure to cover all of the cheese bits. Do not over do the gravy though, your fries will be overly soggy then (not to mention you can always add more gravy later, but it will be harder to try to take the gravy out)!
The fries were okay, but I am a little biased here because I am personally not a big fan of thick cut fries. I prefer thin and crispy fries, that is why when I made this with the shoestring fries, I loved it a lot more. Oh another thing is that, for these fries, you definitely need to add your own salt! I did not know that it was unsalted, so the fries were a little bland, good thing we had gravy and cheese to go with it. I did put salt on the shoestring batch though before I stuck it in the oven, and boy did it come out nice and crispy and tasty when it came out.
The cheese curds were lovely. I love melted cheese. It went great with the poutine, yummy!!
And last but not least, the gravy was alright. Just alright though. I actually found the gravy to be a little bland too. Not much of a taste to it. I think next time I will stick with gravy mix or canned gravy instead of the No Name brand poutine sauce.
So there you have it, homemade poutine, definitely does not beat those ones you can get out there, but it will be a temporary fix for your cravings! Enjoy!
