Poutine ~ Canada's Delish 'Hot Mess' Dish

Poutine (/puːˈtiːn/; French: [putin], Quebec French:[put͡sɪn]

[Press the button to hear pronunciation of the word Poutine by a Quebec CA native ] 
is a common Canadian dish, originating in Quebec, made with french fries, topped with a light brown gravy-like sauce and cheese curds. This fast food dish can now be found across Canada, and is also found in some places in the northern United States and the United Kingdom.

It is sold in small diners (commonly known as cantines or casse-croûtes in Quebec) and pubs, as well as by roadside fry wagons (commonly known as cabanes à patates, literally "potato shacks"). and hockey arenas. National and international chains like New York Fries, McDonald's, A&W, KFC, Burger King, and Harvey's also sell mass-market poutine in Canada (although not always country-wide). In the basic recipe for poutine, French fries are covered with fresh cheese curds, and topped with brown gravy.

In a Quebec poutine: French fries: Usually of medium thickness, and fried (sometimes doubly) so that the inside stays soft, while the outside is crispy. Cheese curds: Fresh cheese curds are used to give the desired texture. The curd size may vary but is usually slightly smaller than bite-sized. Brown gravy:

Traditionally a light and thin chicken, veal, or turkey gravy, mildly spiced with a hint of pepper, or a sauce brune which is a combination of beef and chicken stock, a variant originating in Quebec. The gravy should be thin enough to easily filter down into the mass of fries and cheese curds.

These sauces typically also contain vinegar or a sour flavoring to balance the richness of the cheese and fries. Traditional poutine sauces (mélange à sauce poutine) are sold in Quebec, Ontario, and Maritime grocery stores in jars or cans and in powdered mix packets. Heavy beef or pork-based brown gravies are rarely used. To maintain the texture of the fries, the cheese curd and gravy are added immediately prior to serving the dish. The hot gravy is usually poured over the cold cheese curds, so that the cheese is warmed without completely melting. It is important to control the temperature, timing and the order in which the ingredients are added, so as to obtain the right food textures which is an essential part of the experience of eating poutine.

Variations ~ There are many variations of poutine. Recently, some outlets have begun to offer vegetarian gravy as an option to cater to vegetarians. Some restaurants offer poutine with such toppings as chicken, bacon, or Montreal-style smoked meat. Some such restaurants even boast a dozen or more variations of poutine. For instance, more upscale poutine with three-pepper sauce, merguez sausage, foie gras or even caviar and truffle can be found. Some variations eliminate the cheese, but most Québécois would call such a dish a frite sauce ("french fries with sauce") rather than poutine.

Shawinigan and some other regions have patate-sauce-choux where shredded raw cabbage replaces cheese. Fast food combination meals in Canada often have the option of getting french fries "poutinized" by adding cheese curds (or shredded cheese in the Prairies and Western Canada) and gravy.

 Sweet potato has been used to be a healthy alternative to french fries. The idea of adding dietary fiber and vitamins in this classic dish is widely appraised by the public. Crinkle-cut fries may be used as well. Outside Canada, poutine is found in northern border regions of the United States such as New England, the Pacific Northwest and the Upper Midwest.

These regions offer further variations of the basic dish. Cheeses other than fresh curds are commonly used (most commonly mozzarella cheese), along with beef, brown or turkey gravy. In the county culture especially, a mixed fry can also come with cooked ground beef on top and is referred to as a hamburger mix, though this is less popular than a regular mix.

Text Credit: Wikipedia || Photo Credit: Photo by PerryPlanet at wikimediacommons || Sound Credits: Pronunciation of the word Poutine || MP3 player created by sookietex at MP3player

Spam, The Canned Pre-Cooked Meat, Not Unsolicited e-mail

Spam, The Canned Pre-Cooked Meat, Not Unsolicited e-mail

Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, sugar, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. Spam's gelatinous glaze, or aspic, forms from the cooling of meat stock.

In the United States in the aftermath of World War II, a troupe of former servicewomen was assembled by Hormel Foods to promote Spam from coast to coast. The group was known as the Hormel Girls and associated the food with being patriotic. In 1948, two years after its formation, the troupe had grown to 60 women with 16 forming an orchestra. The show went on to become a radio program where the main selling point was Spam. The Hormel Girls were disbanded in 1953. Spam is still quite popular in the United States, but is sometimes associated with economic hardship because of its relatively low cost.

On average, each person on Guam consumes 16 tins of Spam each year and consumption is similar in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Hawaii, and Saipan, the CNMI's principal island. These areas have the only McDonald's restaurants that feature Spam on the menu.

Spam was introduced into the aforementioned areas, in addition to other islands in the Pacific such as Okinawa and the Philippine Islands, during the U.S. military occupation after World War II.

Since fresh meat was difficult to get to the soldiers on the front, World War II saw the largest use of Spam when it was served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Some soldiers referred to Spam as "ham that didn't pass its physical" and "meatloaf without basic training".)  Soldiers commonly referred to Spam as "Special Army Meat" due to its introduction during the war. Surpluses of Spam from the soldiers' supplies made their way into native diets. Consequently, Spam is a unique part of the history and effects of U.S. influence in the Pacific.

The residents of the state of Hawaii consume the most Spam per capita in the United States. Hawaiian Burger King restaurants began serving Spam in 2007 to compete with the local McDonald's chains. In Hawaii, Spam is so popular it is sometimes referred to as "The Hawaiian Steak". One popular Spam dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, where cooked Spam is combined with rice and nori seaweed and classified as onigiri.

The perception of Spam in Hawaii is very different from that on the mainland. Despite the large number of mainlanders who consume Spam, and the various recipes that have been made from it, Spam, along with most canned food, is often stigmatized on the mainland as "poor people's food". In Hawaii, similar canned meat products such as Treet are considered cheaper versions of canned meat than Spam. This is a result of Spam having the initial market share and its name sounding more convincing to consumers.

In these locales, varieties of Spam unavailable in other markets are sold. These include Honey Spam, Spam with Bacon, and Hot and Spicy Spam.

In the CNMI, lawyers from Hormel have threatened legal action against the local press for running articles alleging ill-effects of high Spam consumption on the health of the local population.

Spam that is sold in North America, South America, and Australia is produced in Austin, Minnesota (also known as "Spam Town USA") and in Fremont, Nebraska. Austin, Minnesota has a restaurant with a menu devoted exclusively to Spam, called "Johnny's SPAMarama Menu".

In 1963, Spam was introduced to various private and public schools in South Florida as cheap food and even for art sculptures. Due to the success of the introduction, Hormel Foods also introduced school "color-themed" spam. The first being a blue and green variety which is still traditionally used in some private schools of South Florida.

In 2007, the seven billionth can of Spam was sold.

Text Credit: Wikipedia || Image Credit: TJSLabs

Roast Leg of Lamb

During my childhood the traditional main course for Easter was either ham or lamb. As this site has already dished up the ham we will now do the lamb.

Leg of lamb is a whole leg. Saddle of lamb is the two loins with the hip. Leg and saddle are usually roasted, though the leg is sometimes boiled. Lamb shank is a cut of meat from the upper part of the leg.

Forequarter meat of sheep, as of other mammals, includes more connective tissue than some other cuts, and, if not from a young lamb, is best cooked slowly using either a moist method, such as braising or stewing, or by slow roasting or American barbecuing. It is, in some countries, sold already chopped or diced.

The fell is the thin, paper-like covering on the outer fat. It should not be removed from roasts and legs because it helps these cuts retain their shape and juiciness during cooking. The fell has usually been removed at the market from smaller cuts, such as chops.

Lamb, hogget, and mutton (UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) are terms for the meat of domestic sheep (species Ovis aries) at different ages. A sheep in its first year is called a lamb; and its meat is also called lamb.

The meat of a juvenile sheep older than one year is hogget; outside North America this was also a term for the living animal, but this meaning is now largely obsolete. The meat of an adult sheep is mutton, a term only used for the meat, not the living animals.

Lamb is the most expensive of the three types, and in recent decades sheep-meat is increasingly only retailed as "lamb", sometimes stretching the accepted distinctions given above. The stronger tasting mutton is now hard to find in many areas, despite the efforts of the Mutton Renaissance Campaign in the UK. In Australia, the leg of lamb roast is considered the national dish. Commonly served on a Sunday or any other special occasion. The term prime lamb is often used to refer to lambs raised for meat. Other languages, for example French and Italian, make similar, or even more detailed, distinctions between sheep meat by age and sometimes by gender, though they generally lack the particular habit of English in having different terms for the living animal and its meat.

From Wikibooks Cookbook

Roast Lamb

Leg of lamb (bone on or off), approximately 3.3 lbs [feeds 4 people] 6 x whole fresh garlic cloves, peeled 3 sprigs fresh rosemary Salt

3 Tablespoons butter or 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil Vegetables [wikiHOW suggests: 6 potatos, 4 large carrots, 1 1/2 cups peas] Of course whichever vegetables are preferred by yourself/your guests may be substituted

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Put butter or oil in baking dish. Place the dish in the oven to heat up. Prepare the leg of lamb. Using a sharp knife, plunge into the meat, making three incisions in top side (approx. 1.1 inches deep) and three similar incisions on bottom side. Into each incision, insert one peeled clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. Rub a thick layer of salt [Recipes Damage In The Kitchen editor's note: coarse salt is suggested] all over the surface of the piece of lamb.

This assists with cooking a 'crunchy' skin. Wearing oven mitts, remove the baking dish from oven and place the prepared lamb into the middle of it. Put the dish back in oven and set the timer for 30 minutes (25 minutes for a fan forced oven). The cooking time for lamb is generally 30 minutes per 1.10 pounds. Peel and chop the vegetables. Note that the vegetables will take 1 hour to roast. After 30 minutes, remove the lamb in the baking dish from the oven. Spoon the oil in the base of the dish all over the lamb leg. Place the prepared vegetables around the lamb leg and return the dish to the oven.

Set the timer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, again remove the baking dish from the oven. Spoon the dish oil over both the lamb leg and all of the vegetables. Again, return to the oven. Set the timer another for 30 minutes. Prepare the other necessities for serving the lamb. The following sub-steps will use up the last 15 minutes of roast cooking time: Fifteen minutes after this latest return of the lamb to the oven, put the peas in a saucepan of water on the stove. Heat to boil. Remove the lamb and vegetables dish from oven. Remember to turn off the oven. Place the lamb on a plate. Cover with foil for 5-7 minutes to 'rest'. This means that it will drain off excess fluids. Use this time to drain and serve peas, serve out vegetables. Serve. When the lamb has 'rested', slice the lamb and serve with the roasted vegetables.

Text Credits: Wikipedia WikiHow wikibooks cookbook
Image Credit: wikimediacommons