A big welcome to Steve's kitchen and a happy Canada Day to all my Canadian
friends out there. I thought we'd have some fun in the kitchen today and make that
classic Canadian poutine, which I absolutely love. Now last week I made the
perfect french fries and if you remember I took a batch of them and I froze them,
put them into the freezer. So we're going to be using those french fries, we're going
to double fry them, get them lovely and crispy for our poutine. A lot of people
love to top their poutine with all sorts of delights, I've decided to go with a
delicious maple bacon. So I've taken some strips of bacon and we're just frying them
on a low heat over a long time with a little bit of butter and maple syrup
until they become lovely and crisp and that's just going to be a garnish to go on
top of my poutine. Of course we're going to have gorgeous squeaky curd cheese. Now I
did at one time think I might do this with a mozzarella, we gave it a try, it
really didn't work. So I've made some homemade curds and they are just perfect
for this. Now if you want to make your own delicious squeaky curds you can
check the video up that I did last week to see how to make them, trust me they're
going to make all the difference to this absolutely delicious poutine. Now let's
get on and make our gravy. We start our gravy off with a traditional roux, that's
equal amounts of flour to butter. I've gone for four tablespoons of lightly
salted butter, four tablespoons of flour. I like to add lots of black pepper in
with my gravy and I kind of wish I had put some diced onions in, I forgot to but if
you want to add some nice finely diced onions it adds to the flavor and I'm
just going to cook these in a pan until they're sort of nutmeg toasty Brown.
We're then going to build this roux into our gravy by adding a couple of
cups of stock. We're going for 50% beef stock and 50% chicken stock and I'm
going to add them in gradually a little bit at the time and let the sauce
thicken up until I get to the consistency I'm looking for and when
we're done we can put that gravy aside and get on and prepare our french fries.
So that's my gravy done, my Maple bacon smells delicious I can't wait to eat
this. I've got a lovely big bowl of my squeaky curds here on the side and I've
taken my frozen french fries out of the freezer. Now if you watched the how to
make the perfect french fry video you'll know that these are already
partially cooked. I've got my oil, I'm using rice bran oil you can use any oil
you like. I bought it up to 150 degrees Celsius that's about 300 Fahrenheit.
We're going to cook these for about seven minutes to get a lovely golden brown
coating on the outside and then going to lift them out of the hot oil. I'm going to
let the oil heat up to 190 degrees Celsius, that's about 375 Fahrenheit, the
oil is nice and hot now it's up to temperature, we're going to plunge these in
and we're going to cook them for about three to five minutes until they're
lovely and crispy and golden brown. Oh they're coming up lovely and brown. Now you
Canadians will know how you love your poutine. I've been sort of deliberating
whether I serve this in a paper plate or a dish or a bowl. I've decided just to go
with a flat plate, let me know the way you prefer your poutine to be served.
Everything's ready now we're getting close to kickoff time the fries are
looking gorgeous, I'm going to lift those out, look at how gorgeous and brown they
are, they're crispy crisp. I'm going to,, I don't know if you can see me over here
so I'm going to plate up the french fries to start with, they're looking
gorgeous. I'm going to season this with a little bit of fleur de sel. Now curds
I've got heaps and heaps of curds that I made the other day so I don't need to go
too stingy on the curds, I'm going to put lots of lovely big cubes on there. I'm possibly
slightly overdoing it but it's because I can. Now I've got my maple bacon here and
I'm just going to quickly dice it up so I've got some nice garnish. Now I'm just
going to whisk up my gravy, make sure it's nice and smooth and then we're going to
take it and I want to pour this gravy all over my french fries. Make sure I get
it all over the curds and again I've got lots of gravy so I'm not going to skimp
on it. Let's take our maple bacon, put a nice big pile on the top. I'm going to get
myself a french fry, actually get one of those curds as well. A big happy Canada
Day to you all, I hope everybody around the world will be enjoying some
delicious poutine and by the way next week I'm going to mess around
with the poutine and do something a little bit crazy, so join me for that. I'm
going to tuck in and give this a try. Oh wow! no wonder it's a national dish. Oh! little
squeak - the curds under the teeth, that is so delicious, so so good. I hope you've
enjoyed it and above all I hope I've done justice to this classic Canadian
dish. Be good, see you again next time.