Hello my lords, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Nick Saraf's Foodlog!
One day, England and France decided to go out and paint the town red together.
And that is how Canada was born.
Oh Canada!
The great white North, the goody two shoes sister of the United States..
..where everything is sugar coated.
No, wait, sorry! Maple syrup coated!
As you might have guessed, the traditional breakfast of the Canada..
..is not very different from a full English breakfast or an American Breakfast.
But, we have already seen those.
So let's move on to Canada's national dish..
..which is fast becoming a desired breakfast item by millions of hunger over Canadians.
'Poutine'
Not to be confused with my dear friend of Vladimir.
I jest! I don't fancy Vladimir at all.
So Poutine originates from the Quebec region of Canada.
And Poutine is nothing but chips covered with gravy and cheese curds.
You know, chips!
What the North Americans like to call 'French fries'.
So, most people like to use frozen french fries to make their Poutine..
..but that is clearly moronic!
So I am going to make my own fries using fresh potatoes.
So lets see how to make a round potato into a long fry!
If you don't know how to, you can see it now.
So it's very important that we drain all the water from these potatoes..
..before we fry them and dry them.
Unless, of course you like suffering from severe buds.
So why dry the fries you ask!
Because water is heavier than oil so it sinks to the bottom of the pan..
..and then bursts up a steam and there is oil everywhere.
So into the boiling hot oil, the fries go.
This is potato song!
One potato, two potato, three potato, stop!
..four potato, five potato, six potato, stop!
..seven potato, eight potato, nine potato, stop!
So once the chips are brown they are quite done.
So we take them out and lay them on some absorbent paper in a colander.
So while the chips have not completely cooled down..
..we add salt and pepper to our taste.
And then, you just toss it, so that all of them get it.
Canadians don't generally put black pepper with their chips but..
..I really like the flavor!
Now we can hear the crispiness of these potatoes.
And now we keep this aside and move on to the next thing.
A Canadian breakfast cannot be complete without some Canadian bacon.
Now what I have done is, I have taken..
..long streaky Canadian bacon and cut it into little bits.
And on the warm pan, not too warm, mind you!
We let the bacon bits cook in their own fats.
We must make sure that when we cut the bacon into little bits, we don't cut them too small..
..or else they are going to shrink and burn quite easily.
When it's nice and brown or golden..
..take it out on some absorbent cloth.
As we did in the American breakfast..
..we caramelize this bacon in Canada's very own gift to the world, the maple syrup!
Medium heat on a pan.
Pour some maple syrup..
..and add the bacon..
..and quickly cook all of it.
And make sure you get it off your pan and off the heat on to a plate..
..before it caramelizes and burns.
Make sure that you make little separation in the bits of bacon..
..otherwise it's going to be one big sticky messy of a bacon cooking.
Not all that bad but really, you can't really put it over anything else except your own tongue.
Now this about a cup of chicken stalk that I am going to bring to the boil..
..and then I am going to add this.
Now, when we made gravy earlier in the American breakfast..
..we added cold milk to a hot bubbling mixture of flour and butter.
This time, we are doing exactly the opposite!
To hot chicken stock we are adding a cold mixture of 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of flour.
This mixture in French is called Beurre manie.
And now we add this, called Beurre manie.
How I love saying it!
To this hot stalk. In it goes.
And then, we whisk it like we did with the gravy.
And till it dissolves, on a low flame and thickens to form some good chicken gravy.
Can be done with veal stock too or Turkey.
Chicken stock is the easiest one! So...
So when the gravy is thickened we take it off the heat..
It's perfect, heavenly! I can drink this like soup.
And now I am going to transfer to it into this little jug, so it's easier for me to pour it.
So the last thing we make today, is little quail sunny side up eggs.
Now if you don't get quail eggs, you can obviously just make one big chicken egg..
..you can it put it on top of the Poutine.
But it looks very pretty when you have little eggs lined up.
Quail eggs are a bit difficult to break because the shell is hard.
So I have broken individual eggs into little containers like these!
On a low heated pan I am going to drizzle little bit of oil..
..and drop the egg.
Now we just transfer them on to plate.
So let's start with the chips!
Some chopped cheddar cheese.
This is an alternative to cheese curd if you don't have it.
But really, for flavor there is no alternative to cheese curd.
Maple syrup and bacon, very very sticky!
Trust me when I say this and I know you will..
..all you bacon lovers out there!
It is absolutely worth the mess.
And finally... the essence of Canada, maple syrup!
Lightly drizzled over.
So, Voila Here we have it. Poutine!
Just simple chips with some cheese, some gravy, some bacon and some eggs.
Not only a good breakfast food..
..but a great cure for the hangover!
You know what I am talking about Canadians!
So, Bon appetit! Have a good breakfast guys.
Goodbye.