Canadian French Fries & Gravy: Poutine

Often pronounced like, "poo-teen," in the U.S., but more like, "poo-ten," in Canada, its birthplace (Quebec).

If you mess up the recipe, no problem, just call it, "Putin," send it to Trump, and he'll never utter a word of criticism about it.

You can make this recipe very simply by getting some french fries at your neighborhood fast food outlet and by opening a jar or can or beef gravy. If you enjoy cooking and don't mind a little more involvement, you can buy frozen french fries and cook them per the instructions on the package, or make the fries yourself from scratch (see below). You can fry them in oil, or you can forgo the oil and put the potatoes on a baking sheet and pop them into the oven. Cheese curds can be found in many cheese shops or supermarkets (for Clevelanders, I bought my cheese curds at the West Side Market). Then you can make your own gravy (see below), but you can use store bought beef broth to streamline the gravy making process a bit.  

Ingredients (5 + servings):

2 pounds baking potatoes, skin on, cut into fries
1 1/2 cups cheese curds
2 tablespoons oil + 1 tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 cups beef stock/broth
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 heaping tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt (remember, the beef stock will have salt)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

If you want to fix the potatoes from scratch, scrub and rinse the potatoes well, cut a small slice off of the unpeeled potato to form a flat base for the potato. Place the potato on its cut side, then cut through the potato to make about 1/4 inch thick pieces. Cut each of those pieces into uniform fries. Soak the fries in cold water. While the fries soak, add the butter and oil to a sauce pan over low heat. Add the chopped onion and the garlic and let cook, stirring occasionally to prevent burning or heavy browning, until the onion softens. Stir in the flour and let cook a minute or two to take away the raw taste from the flour. Increase heat to medium and gradually add the beef stock, stirring constantly. Add the Worcestershire sauce, the ketchup and the dried thyme, stir to mix. Bring the gravy to a boil and lower the heat to maintain the gravy at a simmer. Let the gravy simmer until it reduces by about a quarter or until it reaches the thickness you want.
 
Heat about a 1/4 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium heat (or if you have a deep fryer, follow the fryer's instructions). Drain the potatoes and dry them well onto paper towels (otherwise, big time spattering ... ah, someone once told me that). Add the potatoes and cook for a few minutes until they are about "half" done. Remove the potatoes and allow them to cool. Turn the heat up a notch and return the potatoes to the hot oil until they are nicely browned. Drain the potatoes on paper towels (you can sprinkle on a little salt, if desired). Put some fries onto a plate, sprinkle some cheese curds over them and ladle or spoon some (or a lot) of hot gravy over the fries and cheese. It doesn't get much better than this ... 

WORD HISTORY:
Imp-This word is distantly related to "boor," "bower" and to the last part of "neighbor" (British: "neighbour"), all words from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "bu/bhu," which meant "to be," with extensions: "to dwell, to live upon/on, to grow." This gave Ancient Greek "phyein," which meant, "to make grow," and when given the prefix "em" (=in), it meant, "to implant." This produced the Greek adjective "emphytos" (implanted), which was borrowed by Latin as "impotus" ("implanted;" thus also, "grafted"), which was contracted to "imptus," with the same meanings. This was borrowed by Germanic, but the actual form is unknown, although it gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "impian," meaning, "to implant, to graft." This produced the English noun "impe," meaning, "a shoot from a plant, a shoot grafted to another plant." From this meaning the word began to shift in meaning to, "a child," from the notion of a "young plant shoot." By the second half of the 1500s, the word was used in the expression, "imp (child) of the devil/Satan," which added the meaning to the word of, "a small demon," and thus also, "a mischievous child." German eventually took a different turn with the word, as it has the verb "impfen" (to inoculate^) and "Impfung" (inoculation).  Low German has "empen" (graft, implant), Swedish has "ympa" (graft).

^ A few hundred years ago, the main meaning of the word "inoculate" was, "to graft buds onto a plant," a meaning still around, but more in agriculture than in the general public. It wasn't until later that the idea of  "implanting dead or inactive virus into a person to help prevent illness" came about and then it became the primary meaning in English.