Canada: With Glowing Hearts, We See These Fries
Canada: With Glowing Hearts We See These Fries
Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once referred to Canada as a historic accident. For much of its history, its defining sense of self has related much more to its NOT being the USA rather than any nationalistic rallying point for its own culture. Recent events with the Trump Administration threatening annexation and trade war have demonstrated that dynamic quite clearly. This was a nation stitched together from the far northern area “Beyond the Wall”, the fur traders surviving harsh winters, the French proudly maintaining their language in the face of erasure, the indigenous peoples trying to maintain their identity while being placed under federal receivership, the plains-folk and the immigrants, all working to keep this snow-crusted land humming.
Canada’s cuisine reflects this spirit of survival, and the diverse influences that have made it into the anti-nation it is today. While it formed from the areas that simply didn’t want to join the US, its own culinary and cultural identity is shaped by the experiences that made its people rely on food that was adaptable and available.
Today we will look at this food, and the events it powered that made Canada what it is today. We will look at how a simple meat pie became a cultural reminder for a people who were forced to leave their homes because of international political intrigue, how fried bread became a necessity for indigenous people deprived of everything and helped fuel their rage against the government that took it, how a simple sweet baked at church bake sales on the plains helped fuel working class fire to bring a city to its knees, how smoked meat, piled high and put into sandwiches provided a quick snack to immigrant labor as it fought for its piece of the pie, and how a “mess” of gravy, fries, and cheese became a symbol of a culture refusing to be erased.
So today, don’t be a hoser, forget the moose and mounties for a second, and get ready for a real taste of the far north.
Tourtière: The Pie That Wouldn’t Die
Tourtière is a traditional French-Canadian meat pie that evolved from survival. During the harsh winters, French-Canadian settlers would fill pies with spices and whatever meat was available—pigeons, rabbits, pork, or whatever else one might find in the cold of winter. Over time, this pie became a celebration, served as part of the Christmas réveillon and New Year’s Eve meals in the French-speaking part of Canada. It turned from a dish of survival to one of celebration. But, for one group of French-Canadians, it served as a reminder.
Acadia was the name given to the division of New France that is now the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The French-speaking settlers and Indigenous residents lived relatively isolated from the warmaking between Britain and France for control of the colonies. Acadia fell into British hands in 1710, but the residents maintained a strict policy of neutrality and would never raise arms on behalf of or against their Quebecois cousins. Thus, little changed for them, and they went on hunting, fishing, farming—and eating their meat pies as usual.
As war drums began beating again in the colonies, leading up to the French and Indian War, Britain viewed this neutrality with suspicion. Acadians refused to swear an unqualified oath of loyalty to the British Crown—not out of disloyalty, but out of a desire for peace. But the British decided to expel the Acadians from Acadia in 1755.
From an anti-colonialist perspective, one might be tempted to view the Acadians as settlers, but it should be noted: the forced removal of people from their homes by an imperial power is never in service of justice. This was a brutal expulsion. French-speaking and Indigenous communities were systematically uprooted, deported to southern colonies or back to France. The Acadians didn’t take this lying down. Militias formed. Mi’kmaq allies raided British operations. And during this struggle, tourtière became a symbol of the culture and land they were fighting to preserve.
Despite passionate resistance, the Acadians were overrun. Many fled to places like Cape Sable, but were chased and deported. Most were relocated to Massachusetts or ended up in Louisiana, where they became “Cajuns.” Between 10,000 to 18,000 Acadians and Indigenous allies were displaced; roughly 5,000 died from starvation, disease, or drowning. They were treated as outsiders and enemies.
Reminders of home are important for refugees and exiles. Tourtière remained a culinary lifeline. Each slice held not just savory meat and spice—but memory. In Louisiana, Cajun meat pies evolved into smaller, fried versions with bolder spices, but the soul remained intact.
For my own part, my grandma was from Quebec, and my ancestry includes Quebecois, Cajun, and Mohawk roots. Tourtière has been a traditional part of our Christmas Day feast for as long as I can remember. Making it for my mother felt like a passing of the baton—my turn to keep the tradition alive. She approved. And for me, it tasted like home.
Tourtière (Traditional Quebec Meat Pie)
Ingredients:
1 lb ground pork (you can mix pork + beef if you like)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice (optional)
1/4 cup water or beef broth
1 small potato, peeled and grated
1 double pie crust (for top and bottom)
1 egg, beaten, and mixed with a splash of water (for egg wash)
Instructions:
In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the ground pork (and beef, if using) with the onion and garlic until the meat is no longer pink.
Add salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Stir to combine.
Stir in the water/broth and the grated potato. Simmer for about 10–15 minutes, stirring often, until thickened slightly. Let cool.
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Line a pie plate with one crust. Fill with the cooled meat mixture. Cover with the second crust, seal the edges, and cut a few small slits in the top to let steam escape.
Brush the top crust evenly with the beaten egg wash.
Bake for about 40–45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
Let it rest a few minutes before slicing. Best served warm with ketchup, relish, or pickles!
Bannock: Flour and Fire
Bannock Bread, is a type of quickbread that is pan-cooked, often with sweet ingredients such as cranberries and sugar, and is a staple of Canada’s indigenous communities. It is most often to have been introduced by Scottish traders, and its quick and easy preparation (cooked on a stone slab or pan over fire), made it a common meal. Of course, the reason it became an ubiquitous dish amongst Canada’s indigenous has less to do with tradition, and more to do with survival in the face of dispossession and forced assimilation.
Much like the United States of America, Canada’s relationship with its indigenous people has historically been fraught with controversy. While Canada never enacted a single, massive act of removal comparable to the US’s Trail of Tears, Canada’s own policies of assimilation led to several monstrous events. Early on, the British crown took sole responsibility for enacting treaties with indigenous people for land, and the Canadian government enacted a system by which indigenous people could give up their “Indian” status and become a full fledged Canadian citizen. These policies of the government solely being responsible for discussions with the indigenous and the path of “Enfranchisement” or removal of someone’s indigenous identity, paved the way for the 1876 Indian Act.
The Indian Act consolidated these policies into one overarching regime of Control. It defined who was an “Indian”, severely restricting their rights, it designated certain tracts of land as First Nations reserves for the exclusive use and benefit of indigenous bands, it codified the ability of indigenous peoples to give up their native identity and get a new one as an “enfranchised” Canadian citizen. Above all, all native lands and people’s status as “Indians” or “Canadians” were to be controlled paternally by the Canadian government. It also started a policy of starting to ban different indigenous cultural practices such as the Potlatch and Sundance.
As Indigenous Canadians watched their traditional hunting, fishing, and trapping ways eroded—and their ancestral lands carved up—flour, salt, and sugar became some of the only affordable, accessible staples left. Bannock evolved from a well-known bread into a survival food, baked in desperation, and eaten in the worst of circumstances..
Of course, there were those who would not just accept their desperate circumstances. The mixed-race Métis (French for mixed) had a complicated legal standing. They were not legally defined as “Status Indians” in the Indian Act, meaning they were not afforded the right to live on reserves or receive government assistance. As the fur trade dried up, many were pushed farther and farther into the Northwest (which was officially transferred from private Hudson Bay Company hands to the Canadian government in 1870), in search of dwindling resources that were not compensated by the government. The Métis began scrambling to have their plight recognized. Unlike those the government legally defined as “Indian”, they couldn’t engage in enfranchisement and give up their identity for resources and land. This lack or recognition, the gobbling up of land by settlers, and the ongoing erasure of identities under the Indian Act would become quite a powder keg.
In 1885, the Powder Keg exploded. The “Northwest Rebellion”, led by a charismatic Métis leader named Louis Riel, would unite Métis farmers, Cree, and Assiniboine warriors to fight against the Canadian government. In camps around the Northwest, bannock was kneaded and fried, as a food stuff for the rebel fighters to keep energized. While the rebellion failed, and Louis Riel was tried and hanged for treason, it demonstrated that not all were happy with the new regime.
Assimilation would continue, with massive schools enacted for indigenous kids to “unlearn” their indigenous ways and become “Proper” Canadians, inflicting profound and lasting damage on individuals, families, and cultures. But, even in the face of such adversity, indigenous populations could hold onto one aspect of their culture, and that was bannock. This simple bread, born of survival, served as a bedrock of indigenous identity when such identity itself was being threatened.
Bannock was interesting to make. I continually worried it wasn’t getting cooked through, but then when I went to go flip, I saw that to my surprised it was cooked golden brown. Watch out though; the texture is quite crumbly. I used cranberries and cinnamon to add a bit of a sweet flavor, and served as an appetizer for the tourtière I made my mom (Stating the history and relation to our Mohawk ancestors as I was cooking).
Sweet Bannock Recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4–6):
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp butter, melted
¾ cup water or milk
½ cup dried cranberries
Vegetable oil for frying
Instructions:
In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and sugar until combined.
Stir in melted lard or butter, then gradually add water or milk, mixing until a soft dough forms. Fold in dried cranberries.
On a floured surface, knead dough lightly (about 30 seconds), then shape into ½-inch thick patties, roughly 3–4 inches wide.
Heat ¼ inch oil in a skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Fry patties 3–4 minutes per side, until golden and crisp, with a cinnamon-warmed aroma.
Drain on paper towels. Serve warm with butter, honey, or wojapi (Indigenous berry sauce).
Butter Tarts: Sweet Defiance
Butter Tarts are Canada’s gooey gift from the Central prairies. Thought to evolve from sugar pie recipes brought to New France by “The Daughters of the King”, women that the French monarch sent to the colonies to bolster colonial population growth, they evolved into small, gooey tarts made from sparse ingredients that became a staple of central Anglo-Canadian prairie cooking. They became immensely customizable, with different ingredients and fillings, such as walnuts, honey, maple, etc. Baked throughout the country for church bake sales and various community events, by the early 1900s, they were everywhere. Which is why they became a centerpiece of an important part of Canadian labor history.
Winnipeg is the center of Canada’s “Prarie lands”. In 1919, its status as a transportation hub for Canada’s criss-crossing railroads, as a grain center, and distribution point for agricultural products, led to the city becoming both strategically and economically important to the whole of Canada. As World War I ended, inflation soared, and veterans came back to low pay and low job prospects. Combined with low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions that people in Winnipeg were working, many being Ukrainian immigrants and indigenous laborers, Winnipeg was ready to burst.
By May 15, 1919, burst it did. 30,000 workers, unionized and non-unionized, walked off the job, bringing the economy of Western Canada to a complete standstill. Of course, in 1919, the 1st Red Scare was in full effect, with the Russian Revolution having happened two years before. Newspapers in Winnipeg and throughout Canada screamed that the city had been taken by Bolsheviks, scapegoating the Eastern European immigrants as secret communist infiltrators. Many of the companies hired anti-worker vigilantes to break strike lines. Without well established unions, the strikers only had a small amount of funds to keep the strikes going, and would have to turn to community support to get paid.
The women of Winnipeg may not have been able to work in the factories, or join most unions, but they stepped up all the same. Church bake sales were a common feature of prairie life, and they were repurposed to support the General Strike. Women crammed into Winnipeg’s kitchens while their husbands were on the strike lines, baking butter tarts left and right. You could see tables of them set up throughout the city, women selling these gooey pieces of heaven to keep the strike lines strong. It also can’t be emphasized enough that the strikers ate butter tarts to keep THEMSELVES going as well.
On June 17, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested several of the strike leaders on charges of Conspiracy. A few days later, on Saturday, June 21, the returned World War I soldiers staged a “Silent parade” for the arrested strike leaders. As crowds assembled in the thousands, and butter tarts were handed out to the onlooking crowds, the Canadian mounties told the crowds to disburse, waiving their clubs and shooting guns into the air. The crowd turned into a riot, and the resulting scuffle would see 2 deaths, 30 injuries, and 94 arrests. The day became known as Bloody Saturday, and by the time the streets were emptied, strike signs, butter tarts, and mountie hats littering the abandoned streets, the strike committee was shaken and decided to end the strike.
After the strike was over, eight of the strike leaders were brought to trial on conspiracy, with the evidence presented railing against their socialist politics. Two of the leaders were deported to the US, and became active in the US socialist movement. The strike led to a spike in support for the Candian Labour Party (later the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and MUCH later the New Democratic Party), and also provided a springboard to grow the union movement in Canada. By the 1930s, unions would become codified, and workers could eat their butter tarts with a little more protection.
I had a goal when I made my butter tarts. I wanted them to be solid on the top and gooey in the center. I think I succeeded. But, either way these things are addictive and easy to make.
Maple Butter Tarts Recipe
Ingredients (Makes 12 tarts):
For the Pastry:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
3–5 tbsp ice water
For the Filling:
½ cup packed light brown sugar
⅓ cup pure maple syrup
¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
½ cup raisins or chopped walnuts (optional)
Instructions:
Make the Pastry: Whisk flour and salt in a bowl. Cut in cold butter with a pastry blender or fork until pea-sized crumbs form. Add ice water, 1 tbsp at a time, mixing until dough just holds together (do not overmix). Form into a disc, wrap in plastic, and chill for 30 minutes.
Prepare the Filling: Whisk brown sugar, salt, melted butter, and maple syrup until smooth. Stir in egg and vanilla (avoid overmixing). Add raisins or walnuts, if using.
Assemble Tarts: Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Roll chilled pastry to ⅛-inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut 12 (4-inch) circles, re-rolling scraps as needed. Press circles into a 12-cup muffin tin, forming shells. Spoon filling into shells, filling ⅔ full to prevent overflow.
Bake: Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes. Reduce to 350°F (175°C) and bake 10–15 minutes more, until pastry is golden and filling is set with a slightly jiggly center. Cool in tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack. The filling firms as it cools, keeping the center gooey.
Serve: Enjoy warm or at room temperature, with a maple syrup drizzle for prairie swagger.
Montreal Smoked Meat: Stacks of Solidarity
In the early 1900s, Montreal, like most large North American cities, experienced a massive wave of immigration. Montreal, in particular, saw a major wave of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who were fleeing pogroms. They brought kosher meat preparation techniques with them, similar to the pastrami and corned beef seen in cities like NYC. Using meat curing techniques and spices from Romanian-Jewish cuisine, Montreal’s smoked brisket sandwiches took on their own unique life, stacked high with mustard to top, Montreal’s smoky retort to NYC’s pastrami. It quickly became an icon of the city, with delis such as Schwartz’s gaining national and international renown. Of course, the working class Jewish immigrants brought more than just food, they brought their labor, and that labor powered the city’s textile industry. Because of this, the smoky meat sandwiches had the opportunity to become more than just a meal.
The labor force of Montreal’s textile industry in the 1930s was dominated by young women (called midinettes) from two different sources, “Native” French-Canadians, and Jewish immigrants, who brought textile-making skills from Europe. Like most immigrant groups, the Jewish immigrants faced xenophobic prejudice. At the start of the 30s, most of Quebec’s provincial labor unions were heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, serving more as ethnic community groups than a sharpened tool for class struggle. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), with heavily Jewish leadership, would find the Montreal textile industry a fertile ground for organizing, and started to recruit in the shops. One area the ILGWU sought to improve was organizing across ethnic lines. After work, the delis around the factories provided the perfect opportunity to do so. The aroma of smoked meat is a language that is understood by all, and drew both French-Canadian and Jewish midinettes in after work.
At deli booths, ILGWU workers would seek to bridge the divide between Jew and Quebecois, using smoked meat sandwiches as a sort of cultural bridge. These informal after-work gatherings would supercharge a serious labor movement in the textile industry. By 1937, faced with low wages, long hours, and difficult working conditions, workers were ready to do something drastic.
In early 1937, 5,000 mostly French-Canadian female dressmakers staged a surprise general strike, bringing Montreal’s garment industry to a complete halt. To stop the spread of the strike, church influenced unions, employers, and certain elements of the provincial government would stir up Anti-Semitic sentiment against the ILGWU, with its heavily Jewish leadership. However, “Smoked Meat Diplomacy” held strong, and the garment workers remained united across ethnic lines. Much like the smoked meat served as a way to bridge a divide, the smoked meat sandwiches fed strikers, and the delis themselves served as a place to meet to coordinate between different workplaces.
Unlike the Winnipeg General Strike almost two decades prior, this strike ended in a resounding victory for labor, with the six week strike achieving better wages, shorter workdays, and official recognition of the garment union. It also led to a spike in union membership, and a blow to Quebec’s heavy church-influenced culture.
When I went to make myself a smoked meat sandwich, I stuck the brisket in the smoker for about 24 hours. To get that nice moist deli feel, I then put it in a metal steam pot. I was originally going to try and cheat by using pastrami, but I felt it would be in poor taste to the strikers to do so. I am happy that this time I didn’t cheat, because the result was phenomenal.
Montreal Smoked Meat Recipe
Ingredients (Serves 8–10):
5 lb beef brisket
¼ cup coriander seeds
¼ cup black peppercorns
2 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic powder
3 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
Rye bread, sliced
Yellow mustard
Instructions:
Cure: Mix coriander, peppercorns, mustard seeds, paprika, garlic powder, salt, and brown sugar. Rub evenly over brisket. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Smoke: Rinse brisket, pat dry, and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Smoke at 225°F (110°C) for 18 hours, until internal temperature reaches 195°F (90°C).
Steam: Wrap smoked brisket in foil and steam in a 250°F (120°C) oven (Or Steam pot/basket) for 2 hours, until fork-tender.
Slice and Serve: Slice thinly against the grain. Pile high on rye bread with mustard.
Enjoy: Serve with pickles.
Poutine: A Mess of a Revolution
Some consider poutine, a simple dish of fries, cheese curds, and gravy, to be Canada’s national dish. Given its history, this was quite the glow-up (Poutine actually started as Quebecois slang for “mess”). Where did it come from? Well there are a couple different possible origin stories, all centering on greasy spoon diners in rural Centre-du-Québec in the late 1950s. One origin centers on a Drummondville diner called Le Roy Jucep, where owner Jean-Paul Roy began serving fries with a special sauce called “Patate-sauce”. Customers would start adding cheese curds, and Jean-Paul then started advertising it as “"fromage-patate-sauce", and then shortening it to “Poutine” in the 1960s. The other origin is from a Warwick Diner called “Café Ideal” where a customer named Eddy Lainesse asked the owner to toss cheese curds into his bag of fries, to which the owner, Fernand Lachance, exclaimed “Ça va te faire une maudite poutine! (That will make a damn mess!”). In this version, gravy was later added to keep the fries warm. In both tales, customers, not cooks, forged this chaos, defying diner norms. Anglo-Canadians were with the diner owners, sneering at the mess of a dish and using poutine as a backward Quebecois quirk in media jabs. But, by the 1990s, it was Canada’s treasure. Of course, poutine’s rise happened over another period when the Quebecois decided to rebel against their Anglo-Canadian “Diner owners”, the Quiet Revolution.
In the middle of the 20th century, Quebec was a bastion of social conservatism within Canada. Most societal institutions from schooling to healthcare to unions were run by the Catholic Church. This led to a slower pace of development compared to the rest of Canada. Quebec was so focused on tradition, that it lagged behind other provinces. Meanwhile, within Quebec itself, a sort of caste system emerged. Anglo-Canadians, a minority, dominated business and politics, relegating francophones to lesser roles in their own land. The Catholic-dominated francophone institutions seemed to be part of the problem, most indicative during events like the 1937 Montreal Strike, when the Catholic Quebcois establishment unions sided with business owners. Over decades of being stabbed in the back, the Quebecois youth started to turn outside the church.
While diners started slathering French fries with gravy and squeaky cheese to humor their Quebecois patrons, the Quebecois themselves started to create new ideas. Rejecting social conservatism and Anglo-Canadian dominance, the 60s saw the Quebecois embracing a modernized society, embracing their own language as a point of pride, and embracing a new dish, poutine, as a messy, unapologetic symbol of Quebec’s unique identity. As the rest of Canada viewed it as a joke, the Quebecois proudly brought the dish in styrofoam and paper containers to demonstrations, speeches, and sit-ins.
As the church-dominated institutions started to wane, the public sector grew, flush with French-speaking youth looking to take control of their destiny. It was not just a social revolution, but an economic one, with a massive growth in union membership, as youth reading Marx and Gramsci tried to steer these unions in a much more adversarial direction. While munching on their gravy soaked fries and debating the trajectory of the province, some orgs even began to advocate for a complete separation of Quebec from Canada. These ranged from those who committed violent acts (Such as the Front de libération du Québec detonating bombs in the 1970 October crisis) to those who wanted a separation at the ballot box (Like the Parti Québécois, who would eventually form the provincial government and get a referendum where Quebec was within a point of leaving Canada). But, the most powerful demonstration of Quebec’s newfound resilience probably came in 1972.
By 1972, the social and political changes of the Quiet Revolution had created a more unionized, assertive, and mobilized working class in Quebec. No longer tied to the Church, Quebec’s labor unions (mostly at this point in the public sector) formed a group called the “Common Front” to give them a better hand in negotiating with the provincial government. In the spring of 1972, negotiations between the Common Front and Liberal provincial government of Robert Bourassa broke down. The unions were demanding significant wage increases and better working conditions for 200,000 public sector workers including teachers, nurses, and civil servants. The Common Front called for a strike, and with 200,000 workers walking off the job, brought Quebec to a standstill.
Once again, poutine played a role. Now an affordable and filling dish on every street corner in the province, strikers would bring poutine to the picket lines. But, the provincial government wasn’t having it. They started to arrest the union leaders on charges of contempt, something that only intensified public outcry, and made the striking workers dig in their heels. The provincial government would pass bills to make strikes illegal, get injunctions to get hospital workers to continue to work, and even get the union leadership to attempt to end the strike. However, the workers continued striking.
Despite the Common Front leadership’s plea to end, which I can only imagine was like a diner owner’s exclamation 15 years prior, “Ça va te faire une maudite poutine!”, Wildcat strikes continued. Some small towns, such as Sept-Îles, would continue to see a general strike of their entire population, barricading the important Quebec Route 138 that passed through town. Riot police were called in, but could not stop the strike. A local Quebec Liberal Party organizer would ram strikers with a vehicle, leading to one death. But, it would not end the strike. Twenty-two local radio stations were seized around the province, including in Montreal. Also, in Montreal, bridges in the city were littered with nails by strikers. In other words, it was a damn mess, much like the poutine that the strikers were enjoying while continuing to fight for their better wages.
Eventually, a negotiated settlement was reached and the wildcat strikes ended. The strikers didn’t get everything they wanted immediately, but by 1974 all their demands were met. Poutine, once a regional oddity, is now widely considered Canada’s national dish, born of a culture that refuses to take non for an answer when faced with injustice (or normal French fries).
I’ve made poutine before, but used my past attempts to inform this one. Whereas before, I tried with melty cheese, this time I kept the curds as they were and added them at the end. I also made the gravy ahead of time and heated immediately prior.
Classic Poutine
Ingredients:
4 large russet potatoes
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 cup fresh cheese curds (crucial for that squeaky texture!)
2 cups hot beef gravy (see recipe below or use a good quality store-bought)
Salt and pepper to taste
For a Simple Beef Gravy (Optional):
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup beef broth
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
1. Prepare the Fries:
Wash and peel the potatoes. Cut them into thick-cut fries (about 1/2 inch thick).
Rinse the fries under cold water to remove excess starch. This helps them get crispier.
Pat the fries very thoroughly dry with paper towels.
2. First Fry (Blanching):
Heat about 3 inches of vegetable oil in a deep pot or Dutch oven to medium-high
Reduce heat to medium. Fry the potatoes in batches (don't overcrowd the pot) for 3-5 minutes. They should be slightly softened but not browned.
Remove the fries with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels.
Let the fries rest for at least 10 minutes. This cooling period is important for achieving crispy fries.
3. Second Fry (Crisping):
Increase the oil temperature back up to medium-high.
Reduce temp to medium-high. Fry the potatoes again in batches for another 2-4 minutes, or until they are golden brown and crispy.
Remove the fries with a slotted spoon and drain them on fresh paper towels.
Season immediately with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Make the Gravy (if making from scratch):
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter.
Whisk in the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, to create a roux. It should be a light golden color.
Gradually whisk in the beef broth, making sure to smooth out any lumps.
Add the Worcestershire sauce (if using), salt, and pepper.
Bring the gravy to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until it thickens to your desired consistency. Keep it warm.
5. Assemble the Poutine:
Place a generous portion of the hot, crispy fries in a bowl or on a plate.
Scatter the cheese curds evenly over the hot fries.
Ladle the hot gravy generously over the cheese curds and fries. The heat of the fries and gravy will slightly melt the cheese, giving it that wonderful gooey and squeaky texture.
6. Serve Immediately:
Poutine is best enjoyed right away while the fries are still crispy and the gravy is hot!
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