For a week, Quebec restaurants will compete in originality to offer new versions of this popular dish emblematic of the country. But what are the ingredients of a real poutine? franceinfo takes you into the kitchen of a Montreal chef.
Poutine is this alliance of fries and cheese and a third essential ingredient to qualify poutine… poutine! This brown sauce is made from a chicken broth which in Canada is called “brown poultry stock”, as explained in his kitchen by Bertrand Giguère, the chef of “MaBrasserie”, a micro-brewery in Montreal. “First, it takes a quality potato, it takes a sauce with the right texture and then a fresh cheese of the day“, he details.
“The size of the cheese is essential, we need to have a cheese that is fresh daily, that has never been in the fridge. We are talking about cheese curds, so it is a cheddar”.
Bertrand Giguère, chef of “My Brasserie”at franceinfo
Chef Bertrand Giguère’s advice for a successful recipe is above all to pay attention to the size of the potato and the cut of the fries for good absorption of the sauce. And above all, to prepare your poutine at the last moment: “It’s at the dressing level where it becomes important in the sense that it takes cheese distributed in the right way at the bottom of the plate, before placing the fries, to then come back with cheese, to ensure that “we’re going to have cheese until the end of the poutine! And then, we end up with the very hot sauce to wet everything, that’s it”. Clearly, the poutine must be “rise to the piece, otherwise it is not edible”.
It’s the start of the #poutineweek!
At Casse-Croûte at Line with Korean fried chicken
pic.twitter.com/qnXkdDiLwu—Samuel Turcotte (@Commander__Keen) February 4, 2023
“Poutine Week” (or “Semaine de la Poutine”) in Canada is not the only week of the year when Quebecers eat this very special dish. Besides, it’s a bit like the kebab in France: everyone (or almost) has already eaten it and you can find it everywhere, confirms Bertrand Giguère: “I think that all Quebecers eat it, it’s part of the end of the evening, young people who go out to bars, it’s part of childhood celebrations, of all canteens, of all fast food… C is a very popular dish.”
From poutine to popcorn or duck
The specificity of this “Semaine de la Poutine” is also that each restaurant offers an “unpublished” recipe, a way of keeping restaurateurs alive during a rather off-peak time of year. At “MaBrasserie”, for example, the poutine of the week is made up of smoked mackerel, sea snails and marinated shallots.
And you can find unlikely recipes all over Canada, like Thai, Haitian, popcorn, or duck poutine! Even if, for the purists, we repeat it, the poutine will always remain composed of three ingredients: potato, cheese, and sauce.