Many people now are familiar with Poutine which is a classic Quebec dish. The first time I heard of it was in 1987 on a trip to Montreal. I was living in Ontario at the time and never heard of it.
I thought it was a rather strange dish. For those who still don't know what it is, it's simply french fries with gravy and cheese curds.
I wasn't thrilled about cheese curds so I never tried it until much later on another visit to Montreal where we were partying and had the late night munchies. We went to an all night diner where we had a plate of sloppy gravy and cheese curd covered chips.
This diner offered Poutine with all kinds of additional toppings like meat sauce and mushrooms.
If a Poutine loving Quebecois who is not vegan knew that I was calling this Poutine if it doesn't have cheese on it, they would probably nail me to the wall and throw darts at me. They take their Poutine very seriously.
I substituted the cheese curds for cashew cream cheese made from cashews lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Nutritional yeast would be good to add but I didn't have any. It was ground up in a blender and put on with the gravy.
The gravy was made from 4 cups chopped mushrooms, 4 cups vegetable broth, garlic, 1 onion, bay leaf,1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 teaspoon thyme, 1/2 teaspoon dill, pepper, 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 teaspoon sugar. It was blended until smooth.
Since I try to avoid deep frying I put the fries in the oven. I don't have a bottom element so it had to be carefully done under the grill. Because of this I blanched them until they were a little tender but not completely cooked.
After the gravy is poured on, I put dollops of cashew cheese on which looked kind of like Poutine cheese.
I cut some chives from the garden and tossed them on top. It was sloppy but that is what Poutine is all about anyway. That's my excuse. Actually my in-laws whose kitchen it is came home just as I was finishing this off so there was no time to get fancy.
Even though Poutine is traditionally with cheese curds on deep fried potatoes, I will call this Vegan Poutine anyway, because there is more and more demand for it in restaurants these days, plus I am the boss of this dish so I'll call it Poutine if I want.
Thanks for dropping by!