RataterraFirst edition in progress
My atlas

Searches names, synonyms and regional names, with or without accents.

    Potatoes · Recipe · Centre-du-Québec · Reference page

    Poutine

    poutine

    Fries topped with squeaky fresh cheese curds and a hot poultry gravy, assembled at the last moment so the curds just soften. The recipe is from Radio-Canada: chef Marc Maulà's poutine and oven fries, and chef Daniel Vézina's sauce made from a roast-chicken carcass.

    Golden potato sticks with white cheese curds and brown gravy in a white bowl, illustrated in fine brown ink and watercolor.
    Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.
    Servings
    4
    Preparation
    25 min
    Cooking
    50 min
    Total
    1 h 15
    Difficulty
    Moderate

    Equipment

    • Roasting tin from a roast chicken (for the sauce)
    • Fine sieve (chinois)
    • Baking tray, parchment and foil (for oven fries)
    Servings4

    Ingredients

    • Sauce à poutine (Vézina)

    • Oven fries (Maulà)

    • To assemble

    Shopping list

    Method

    1. Make the sauce. Take the carcass out of the roasting tin, pick off any meat for another use, crush the bones and keep them. Leave the juices in the tin.

    2. Set the tin over a medium heat, add the onion and garlic and fry them, then the thyme, bay and parsley stalks. Sprinkle with the flour and add the crushed bones.

    3. Deglaze with the chicken stock, add the veal stock and simmer gently for about 30 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve.

      Timer · 30 min30:00

    4. Heat the oven. Peel the potatoes and cut them into even sticks, keeping them in water as you cut. Drain and dry them well.

      Why Dry potatoes crisp; wet ones steam.

    5. Line a tray with parchment and spread half the oil on it. Toss the sticks with the rest of the oil, salt and pepper and spread them in one layer.

    6. Cover with foil and bake on the bottom rack for 5–8 minutes. Uncover and bake for 25–40 minutes more, turning the fries and rotating the tray every 10 minutes, until well browned.

      Timer · 35 min35:00

    7. Just before serving, reduce the sauce by a third, or thicken it with a little cornflour. It must be very hot.

      Why Hot gravy softens the curds slightly without melting them into strings.

    8. Put the hot fries in bowls, scatter the cheese curds over them and pour the hot sauce on top. Serve at once.

    To drink & serve with

    • Québec

      Editorial suggestion: a cold beer or a Québec cider; or a light red from Québec.

    Substitutions

    • Oven fries → Twice-fried frites, as in the Belgian method, for crisper fries.
    • Home-made sauce → Maulà also serves his poutine with home-made barbecue sauce.
    • Cheese curds → There is no true substitute; young, mild cheese torn into pieces is the nearest. Purists insist on squeaky curds.

    Common mistakes

    • Cold or refrigerated curds: they do not soften.
    • Lukewarm gravy: the fries go soggy and the curds stay cold.
    • Assembling in advance: poutine waits for no one.

    Storage & reheating

    Eat at once. Keep the sauce separately: refrigerate within 2 hours, eat within 2 days and bring it back to the boil.

    Safety

    Contains milk (cheese curds), gluten (flour) and possibly celery (stocks): check labels. Bring the sauce made from the carcass to the boil and keep it hot.

    Allergens

    Milk · Gluten · Celery

    Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

    Who added the gravy?

    The Canadian Encyclopedia dates poutine to rural Québec snack bars of the late 1950s and stresses that its origins are "much debated" and that it developed in stages. Several towns in Centre-du-Québec, where the cheese curds were made, claim it. In Warwick, Fernand Lachance of the Café Idéal said he first put curds on fries for a regular customer in 1957 and added gravy in 1963, when customers complained that the fries went cold on a plate. In Drummondville, Jean-Paul Roy of Le Roy Jucep says he created poutine in 1964, having served fries in a special sauce since 1958 and seen his customers add the curds he sold.

    The name is usually linked to the English word pudding and to Québec slang for a mess, though more than a dozen other explanations exist. Poutine reached Québec City in 1969, a restaurant chain in 1985 and Burger King's Québec menus in 1987.

    [1]

    Fries, curds, hot sauce

    For Radio-Canada's Marina Orsini, chef Marc Maulà reduced the dish to its three parts: a litre of fries, a cup and a half of cheese curds and at least as much sauce, "simply assemble and serve". The sauce, from chef Daniel Vézina's book La cuisine réfléchie, is a poultry gravy made in the roasting tin of a chicken: the carcass is crushed and simmered with onion, garlic, herbs, flour, chicken stock and veal stock for half an hour, then strained and reduced. Maulà bakes his fries at 475 °F rather than frying them.

    [2]

    How it connects

    Place

    • origin Centre-du-Québec In preparation

    Potato

    Recipe

    Wine region

    Continue exploring