Alabama Poutine

Last year, when I drove the Alaska Highway to Alaska and back, I spent several days in Canada. I had been to Canada one other time in my life in 1962, but that was just to Kenora, Ontario and I didn't remember all that much about it, besides, a lot has changed everywhere since 1962 so I really did not know what to expect.

I found that Canada is an interesting country with interesting people. They may share a continent with us, but they certainly have their own culture. Virtually everywhere I went, the people were very nice and fairly laid back. In a lot of ways, they reminded me of folks from the southeastern USA.

Every since I got back from my trip, I have been kind of keeping up with Canada. I've been watching CBC newscasts via internet, reading articles about Canada and things Canadian in the Wikipedia and this year I even listened to the Grey Cup. I have learned alot and come across some interesting things. Recently I discovered a uniquely Canadian food, poutine. For those of you that are like I was and have never heard of poutine, it is a dish that was developed in the province of Quebec and seems to have spread throughout Canada. Basically it is fried potatoes sprinkled with fresh cheese curd and topped with gravy.

Now no one likes fried potatoes any better than I do and gravy is a staple in my household, but cheese curd? If anybody makes cheese in Alabama, I don't know about it. Fortunately my daughter is a cheese guru so I called her up out in Texas and asked her where I might get some fresh cheese curd. She said that the closest place that she knew of to me was Sweetwater Tennessee but that I could probably get the same general effect from fresh mozzarella and that I should be able to find that at the Publix down the street. Sure enough I went to Publix and there was the fresh mozzarella, See, I told you she was a cheese guru.

Anyway, I brought the mozzarella home and diced up some of it to about the size of the cheese curd that I had seen in a picture of poutine on a web page. I put some frozen french fries in the oven to cook and set about to make some gravy. Now you probably noticed the title is "Alabama Poutine." There is a reason for that. In addition to using mozzarella instead of cheese curd, I intended to use gravy of my own design. Many of the webpages that discuss poutine mention using canned gravy. I had a different idea. I was gonna use home made tomato gravy. So I put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour in my little cast iron skillet and started to stir. Fifteen minutes later I had a fine little roux. To that I added about 2/3 cup of beef broth and 2 tablespoons of chipped up tomatoes. I let the gravy simmer while I retrieved the french fries from the oven and sprinkled them with the chopped up mozzarella. Next I spooned some of the tomato gravy over them. Voilà, Alabama Poutine. Not a bad dish. I went back for a second helping.