Canada 2024

Back in the kitchen, we find (for once) a Canadian recipe that actually comes from Canada (ignoring that fries are Begium and gravy is English, and who wanted to eat cheese curds anyway?!).

Poutine is our savory snack this week.

It's chips and gravy like any Northener devours daily, but with the added delight enjoyment confusion of topping it with cheese curds.

Now, we don't get cheese curds in UK supermarkets, but apparently it's not dissimilar to cheap mozzarella, so that's what we went for.

But to address the more serious point: 'why would we choose to eat this? - That's totally in Heidi's control. However, I insisted, that if she was going to make chips and gravy, there was going to be no freezer-to-oven chips or instant gravy. This was going to be serious. And so she did.

Potatoes peeled. chipped, boiled, and then oven-fried. Gravy built up from canned stock, seasoned and thickened. Mozzarella - no she didn't make that - drained and mushed (good word eh!), before attempting to eat half the cheese without getting noticed.

As snacks go, it's nothing to write home about, but it suffices to fill a space in the blog - and you're reading it nonetheless. Tally swapped the mozzarella for cheddar and Siân refused all cheese on grounds of 'gross'.

Why's it not been covered in maple syrup?

Boiled potatoes

A big stockpot of gravy

Chips to varying degrees of crispy

Cheese - apparently, it shouldn't look like you prepared it with care.

Recipe

Even though it's only chips and gravy, on the basis that Heidi did put in a lot of effort to make this, instead of doing her biology revision, I feel it deserves to record the recipe.

Ingredients

Chips

4 baking potatoes

Gravy

1 can beef gravy - the sort in the supermarket which looks more posh, but is probably just oxo cubes re-hydrated.

1 can chicken gravy - we're told that the gravy should be sufficiently non-descript in flavour that you can't tell which meat it represents, so better to include both .

A shake of various dried herds from the drawer.

Some number of spoons of cornflour mixed with a little cold water.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/8.
2. Peel and chip the potatoes (this can be the fun part, if your fingers remain attached).
3. Boil the potatoes until cooked but still firm and then flap about until Dad offers to drain the hot pan for you. Leave to dry.
4. Pre-heat a baking tray with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
5. Remove the tray from the oven and roll the chips in the oil. Place back in the oven for some great length of time, turning over in the oil mid-way through.
6. For the gray, pour both cans of stock into the pan and simmer. Add herbs when you feel like it. Thicken with cornflour. 
7. It is normal to whisk/stir ferociously to ensure the cornflour mixes through evenly, but Heidi's feeble arms struggled - instead have Mum filter the gravy at the end.
8. Drain and breakup the mozzarella, alternativng between the serving bowl and mouth.