Chicken Dinner Poutine

 

 

Yesterday was my sister's 63rd Birthday.  Since it was my first time being able to celebrate her Birthday in person after over 20 years, I decided to cook her a slap-up Roast Chicken Dinner.

That is what she wanted.  Roast Chicken with all the trimmings, including my MIL's stuffing, along with a Victoria Sandwich Cake for dessert. 

This is the cake we all enjoy for our celebratory cakes.  We are cake and jam people.

 

I was only too happy to oblige her.  We all love a roast dinner and we all love roast chicken, and the cake, well, that is a real favorite also!  

As usual I cooked far too much for the main meal. We had roast chicken with gravy, fluffy mashed potatoes (as per my father's request), potato stuffing/dressing, peas/carrots and then the dessert. Because there is bread in the dressing, we don't do rolls.

 

Today Cindy, Dan and I are going to Jonnys Cookhouse in Berwick for another birthday dinner.  That's Dan's treat for Cindy. Wednesday nights is the night my dad goes for fish and chips with his friends, so we usually try to do something together also.

I have not been to Jonnys since I was home for our Eileen's wedding, 9 years ago now.  We have been talking about going all Winter. So there is no time like the present, and what better excuse than a Birthday.

 

My sister and I were perusing the menu this morning as we talked on the phone. There is soooo much to choose from, it will be hard to make up our minds, so we thought we needed all day to mull it over so we don't drive Dan to distraction when we get there with our humming and hawing.

Normally the people in my family always have fish and chips when we go out. We say we are going to have something else but, in the end we have fish and chips.  Their fish and chips are great, but so are their Poutine!

 

Their Chicken Dinner Poutine looked especially good.  Crisp chips, melting cheese, chicken, gravy, stuffing and peas.  What to do, what to do!

How could I ever choose???  And then I remembered all the chicken dinner leftovers I had in my refrigerator.

 

I decided to make a Chicken Dinner Poutine for my breakfast  ( a late one, don't judge) and then I could order fish and chips later on.  (Or maybe I will just get an ice cream. It depends on how hungry I am.)

That way I could crack on with my work today and not have to worry about cooking any dinner.  Problem solved!

 

Poutine is very much a Canadian thing. It originated in Quebec in the 1950's and is essentially a dish of hot chips (french fries) with gravy and cheese curds.  

That was at the beginning. At its birth.  You can now get all kinds of poutine. It has morphed into multiple varieties. If you can dream it, you can make it, and it will probably be pretty delicious as the basic version is pretty darned delicious!

 

As long as you get the three main ingredients right. The chips. The gravy. The cheese curds, and it really needs to be cheese curds to be truly authentic. 

And those ingredients need to be piping hot, hot enough to melt the curds!  You can see I achieved a proper melt! Yum yum!

 

You can use mozzarella cheese, because you will get plenty of melt, but real cheese curds for poutine are the authentic way to go.  

When we were children we would visit my father's family up in Northern Quebec. There is a cheese factory near where he grew up and we always got bags of the cheese curds to snack on in the car on the way home. 

 

Squeaky and delicious.  You can't beat them!  Even after mom and dad had separated in their later years, my mom always got my father to pick her up a bag when he went, and he always did.

You can get the bags of cheese curds in grocery stores now.  You can eat them just as is, or you can turn them into Poutine.  And why not!  You only live once.

 

What wonderful flavors are in this dish.  Poutine on its own is delicious, but add some chicken and stuffing and peas? 

You got a little taste of heaven right there on a plate!

Just make sure everything is good and hot and Bob's your Uncle.  You will have poutine perfection! 

Poutine gravy, melting cheese curds, tasty chicken, stuffing, peas.  What's not to love about that I ask you!

I know I am more than a bit incorrigible having this for breakfast, but I am a woman who likes what she likes and is not afraid to embrace it.

This went down a real treat and now I can skip lunch and enjoy some fish and chips later on today.  And why not, my sister only has a birthday once a year!  Chicken Dinner Poutine.  As Martha would say.

Its a good thing.

 

Chicken Dinner Poutine

Yield: Serves 2

Author: Marie Rayner

This is full on decadence. Something delicious to make with your leftovers from a chicken dinner. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Ingredients

• 1/2 of a four serving sized package of frozen French fries
• 1 cup (238g) leftover chicken gravy
• 1 cup (200g) leftover roast chicken
• 1 cup leftover stuffing, crumbled
• 1/2 cup (65g) frozen peas, cooked
• 1 cup (210g) large cheese curds, not packed

Instructions

1. Cook your fries according to the package directions. I use Cavendish Crispy fries and cooked them in my toaster oven. It took approximately 10 minutes.
2. While your fries are cooking, add your chicken to the gravy in a sauce pan and heat until nice and hot and the gravy is bubbling.
3. Warm your stuffing up in the microwave until hot.  Pour boiling water over your peas and then drain.
4. Divide the hot chips between two dishes and layer up as follows:  hot chips, cheese curds, chicken and gravy, crumbled stuffing and peas.
5. If everything is nice and hot your cheese curds will melt beautifully and become nice and stringy.
6. Serve immediately.

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