Gravy on French Fries
When I was 18 I spent the best summer of my entire life in New York. Peekskill NY, but me and my crazy cousins ventured into the city and wow did we have a ball!
I think that is when my adventure with food began, they treated me to a more than a few dinners that were outstanding but at that young age these are the most that stick in my mind.
One was a steak that was grain fed? Am I dreaming about this? It was so GOOD!
And the other was french fries with gravy. OH MY GAWD!
Are the french fries and gravy a figment of my imagination or can you still get them. And it was brown gravy by the way....
chef chicklet
Dec 21, 2006 12:01AM
Go one step further and a few steps farther north into Quebec. Poutine. French fries with cheese curds and gravy. Heaven!
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cheese curds? please explain?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese_c...
I guess I'm a French Fry purist - I prefer them lightly salted, with just ketchup to dip them into. Seems like the gravy would make them soggy, IMO.
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I'm with you. I like mine nice and crispy ( I always order them well done when at a restaurant). Just some salt, and I'm happy!
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There is a place for crispy w/ ketchup, and there is a place for poutine. Chez Ashton in QC, specifically. Regular fries make a good side, but poutine is an entity unto itself. You must try it once. At Chez Ashton.
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amandine, is this the chez ashton in quebec city that you're referring to?
http://www.quebecregion.com/e/membres...
Chez Ashton
640, Grande Allée Est
Québec, QC G1R 2K5
Canada
(418) 522-3449
Fax (418) 682-2613
"For 37 years, Chez Ashton has served food made from top quality ingredients. Specialties include roast beef sandwiches, hamburgers made from fresh ground beef, fries prepared by hand from fresh potatoes and the traditional Québec "poutines". Rapid and courteous service, pleasant atmosphere."
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Wouldn't a true French Fry purist not have them with ketchup since ketchup is not used much in France?
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They're fresh from the factory and taste, to me, a little like mozzerella cheese only w/ a very different texture and they squeek when you eat them. I had some fed-exed to me so I could make fried cheese curds for a friend for her birthday. Poutine has always sounded so good to me. I'd love to find a place near me to try them (whether or not it's "authentic"). They sound like a food that would be great, even if not.
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i don't think there is such a thing as non-authentic poutin... fries with mozza or curds, and brown gravy. there are so many variations in canada, with different cheeses and different gravies, and they're all delish!
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i disagree. poutine is always made with cheese curds (though there is a debate as to the type of gravy).
there have been spinoffs - ie, "italian poutine" - but the basic recipe is the same.
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and i disagree, poutine doesn't HAVE to made with curds, it tastes great that way, but it doesn't have to be curds
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from what i understand - and i realize i'm not the ultimate authority on the matter - it has to be curds for poutine. otherwise, it's fries with cheese and gravy (which is also good, but not poutine).
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Piccola is correct.
DT
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Cheese curds are very fresh young cheddar in irregular shapes. When you bite into them they squeak and are very delicious. When the curds are pressed into molds (cheddared) and pressed and aged you get cheddar cheese. These are mild, sweet, creamy white and I am not getting a craving and know I can't find any where i live right now. Dang! I may have to do an on line search for some. There is nothing like tyem.
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It's expensive but you can have them fed-exed to you.
http://www.rockcheese.com/supfreschee...
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I grew up in Upstate NY, heck I'm still here, gravy on ffries is common. I agree with Candy that poutine is the way to go.
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I was not introduced to Poutine during that trip, but it sure sounds good. My nephew is in Toronto and I owe him a visit, I'll be sure to try them when I go.
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not to sound snobby, especially about such a working-class food, but the poutine you'll find in toronto (and in most places outside quebec) won't be that great. with so few ingredients, you really need them to be the best - particularly the cheese curds, which need to be super fresh
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True, but you can post or review old posts on the Toronto board - I think there are a couple of places that do cheese curds, and many places that do grated cheese versions or even haute versions. It's not a Toronto specialty, it is definitely better in Quebec were every "dep" or corner store has fresh curds. But it's still something fun to try. And crappy gravy somehow tastes much better with cheese.
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I'm not that familiar with Toronto, but I'm sure you're right.
Oh, and I kinda like to use St. Hubert's sauce, even though it's really ghetto...
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BTW, calling it a "working-class food" DOES make you sound snobby
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i know. but let's face it - fries in every country started as a working-class food cuz they're cheap. that doesn't mean they're not good.
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there are a bunch of places that have disco fries (cheese fries with gravy) on their menus..great late night food.
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Gravy fries are what put Nectar's in Burlington on the map (oh yeah, and some band called Phish). I see more people ask for gravy on fries than ketchup). Seems localized to upstate NY and Vermont (and the aforementioned Poutine in Canada).
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Nah, Jersey diners are all about fries w/mozzarella and gravy too. Freaks out my Southern friends. Then again, to them brown gravy is only for turkey -- every other gravy is white.
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>>> Then again, to them brown gravy is only for turkey -- every other gravy is white.
Not in these Indiana woods would that pass for me. Geez, I once ordered a steak and mashed potatoes and was expecting the dark-rich brown gravy. No, I got the actually a white "flour" gravy base with a browning sauce added. I asked the waitress before I even ordered it, that I wanted the real brown beef gravy. Fortunately the chef came out and made me the gravy I wanted and made me a fresh steak. (He substuted a 16oz Porterhouse for a 10oz T-Bone, for all my troubles. he claims he and the boss got into it as this far north not everyone likes the brown flour gravy.)
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"fries w/mozzarella and gravy"? The only time I saw "wet" fries was when i ordered a hot open faced sanwich (turkey or beef) and the gravy from the sandwich sneaked over the line and attacked the fries. Sometimes this was a good thing, always dipped in ketchup (only heinz) and other times they just got too soggy.
I neverr saw mozz cheese w fries when I was a regular at NJ diners in the 70's. Where might that be CO? Must be a southern NJ thing.
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I'm from Bayonne, jfood, which is across from NYC. Other diners around Hudson/Bergen counties had the same thing -- Jersey City, Hoboken, etc.
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I'm from Middlesex County and disco fries were very, very common in diners -- though it was usually American or Velveeta, not mozzarella. You could get mozz if you asked for it special.
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Is the gravy at Nectar's chicken gravy? That's what I seem to remember, but it was also about 1am after a long night of drinking when I had them.
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Also vinegar on fries. That freaks some people out on visits to the North Country. A shaker bottle always used to come automatically on the drive in trays when you ordered fr fr pots.
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I first tasted vinegar on fries at, of all places, the Starlight Cafe across from Space Mountain in Walt Disney World. They offered it in packets right next to the ketchup. Bless the tourists that made that possible! :-)
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20 years ago, as a freshly-minted high school graduate, I spent the summer in Ireland. The first or second day we were there, still suffering with jet lag, we went out on the prowl looking for someplace to eat. Ended up at this tiny hole-in-the-wall called the Kingfisher, not far from the bottom of O'Connell Street. The guy who ran the place had just sat down for a break and had a huge plate of chips, which he proceeded to drown with vinegar from the bottle on the table. I must have looked at him like he had three heads, because he laughed at me.
Next time I went in there I tried the chips that way, and loved them! It's one of my favorite ways to eat them now--if brown gravy from Murphy's is not to be had.
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fires with gravy AND a little vinegar is great. try it.
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The Hat (various locations in Southern California) has what they call "wet fries" -- which is basically fries with gravy.
Good stuff.
www.thehat.com
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Cheese fries and poutine (pronounced kind of like puht-zin here in Quebec) are not the same thing. Cheese curds have a very specific texture and sound and also melt differently than other cheeses. There are subtle differences between recipes (we all know about Au Pied du Cochon's delicious take on it), but the traditional poutine is just frites, sauce brun ou blanche) and cheese curds. yummy! Like LindaWhit, though, I also like an unadulterated fry.
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Moi aussi, tartetatin. There's nothing like the frites in La Belle Province (and I don't mean the hot dog chain!) - they're sweet, crispy and slightly soggy, all at the same time, and NEVER, EVER frozen! Along with a "steame all-dress avec de choux" - pure heaven. Translation of previous sentence: an all-dressed steamed hot dog with cabbage.
And by the way, folks, I grew up in Montreal and never heard of poutine until I was in my twenties. It was a regional Quebec thing that suddenly became the rage in the 1980's.
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Fries with gravy is a favorite diner dish here in Baltimore. You may have seen it featured in the Barry Levinson movie, "Diner". Super good, especially late at night after some drinking and carousing.
Love the sound of that Quebecois dish too. Learned to love fried cheese curds during my tenure in Minnesota.
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Eddie where can you find them in Baltimore? My son is at Hopkins and here in Florida the only place that had them closed.
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I LOVE POUTINE as well. When I lived in Canada I always had fries with gravy or poutine. Now I live in NYC and I can't find poutine that is as good as the ones I had in Canada. Even at Pomme Frites (on 7th and 2nd Ave) which is supposed to be the best fries in Manhatton, they can't do the poutine right. They have good Belgium thick cut fries, and the different mayo or sauces are great, but the poutine is just not right. I was so disappointed when I had poutine there, I eventually just have to stick with the regular fries with other sauces.
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Murphy's Steak House, Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Rich, dark, dark brown gravy dumped all over a hot hamburger and real homemade french fries. It's a heart attack on a plate, but you MUST TRY IT!
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this is one of my favorite junky meals to make at home. a can of hot beef gravy poured over a hamburger, fries, and served with peas of course! "hot hamburger" and "hot chicken"(same but with BBQ chicken and white bread) are on every diner menu in Quebec.
the secret to a good poutine, or fries with gravy is crispy fries, otherwise you get a soggy mess. and put a litle white vinegar on it.. you won't be disappointed!
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HOLY S***! Murphy's is still in business?? Still on the west edge of town? I was stationed at the USAF radar site that was on the hill just west of the airport in 1960, and had the deep pleasure of treating myself to a Murphy's burger at least once a week, even though at $1.25 it seriously strained my $120/mo. budget.
There was another, fancier steakhouse in the middle of town that had been recommended by Duncan Hines, so it got all the out-of-town trade...but every Sunday morning you'd see whole families sneaking out of church in mid-sermon to join the line snaking around Murphy's little building!
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Absolutely they're still in business, and in the very same place! Think of the public outcry if they should go away. You can still get the same burgers, the same homemade fries, the same dark brown gravy. I was there in August (I grew up just north of B-ville in Kansas--as a matter of fact I was born in B-ville when my parents both worked for Phillips--but I'm in Iowa now), and if they're open I'm sure we'll go there next week. We introduced my husband's grandson from Oregon--a place where they don't seem to know from gravy--to Murphy's over the summer and he loved it.
Murphy's was actually destroyed in (I think) 1982 by a tornado, but they rebuilt almost immediately, and almost identical to the way it had been. The tornado hit at like 5:30 p.m.--luckily it was Monday, so they were closed, or else there may have been casualties.
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Murphy himself was still in charge when I was there, often sitting at the counter smoking and drinking coffee, but always in his stained cap and apron. The story was that he'd cut a steak off every side he was offered and cook it and eat it, and if it didn't pass muster he'd pass it along to the fancy joint. This could have been myth...
Now I have to figure out where I can go with B-ville as a side trip!
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I once worked at a drive-in in Portland OR, and my favorite meal break treat was crispy hash browns drenched in the standard house brown gravy. Sometimes I could talk the cook into adding sauteed onions or mushrooms to the creation.
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The french-fried potato poboy with roast beef gravy has a long and storied history in/around New Orleans...it takes the gravy fries concept to another degree by putting the whole mess inside french bread, dressed with mayo, lettuce, and tomatoes.
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At home I make various forms of sliced skillet fries, like;
American Fries (salt & pepper)
German Fries (Salt, pepper, & onion).
River Fries (peels left on, seasoned like either above)
Depending on the meat I plan on serving with a meal, Beef, pork, or chicken I make the gravies accordingly. Beef or a Southern Pan style gravy for the chicken are the norms.
Quick (and dirty) meals may sound like River Fries with browned hamburger mixed, and then topped with brown (beef) gravy. Or Shredded frozen potatoes in place of the sliced fresh ones. Fried chicken breasts or fingers / above potato choice / and Southern Pan gravy.
My apologies if this sounds like I am rambling on, but this Chowhound does get carried away at the mention of food!. ;-)
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So funny to see this post today. I'm from Boston, and I was at a diner in Jersey City this weekend, and we struck up a conversation with one of the regulars at 2am. She was telling us to get fries with gravy and mozzarella and I was like "What?!!?" At first I didn't know if she meant "gravy" like red sauce (I'm Italian-American and that's what my family calls it) or what...but then we figured it was brown gravy and cheese. Sounded odd at the time so I stuck with a grilled cheese, but now I'm wishing I tried it!
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I am happy to be able to get cheese curds from the vendors at the local Farmers Market here, and make my own poutine! Yum! I just got some curds with onion flavor I'm dying to try this way.
One thing though...avoid cold fries, esp with cheese, as I almost choked to death on them one night years ago...Yikes!
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This is such an interesting thread! I always thought that fries'n'gravy were totally Canadian. CookingGirl, when I went to Boston a few years back, I got the exact same reaction as yours when I asked for gravy on my fries! They'd never heard of that combination and looked at me like I was just weird.
Also, regarding the sogginess caused by the gravy, some people don't mind it I guess but I just ask for my gravy on the side (which means in a small styrofoam container if you're doing the take-out route).
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But if the gravy's on the side, are you reaheating it? How else is it gonna melt half the cheese curds?
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Actually, I was just referring to plain ol' fries with gravy. Poutine is a different story altogether! :)
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Man, I am SOOOO hungry for fries right now! With gravy... or malt vinegar... or tartar sauce... or melted cheese... or... Yum.
I definitely agree with MsDiPesto that cold fries (and re-heated also) are absolutely crap and nasty.
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If you think fries and tartar sauce are good - try onion rings with it sometime, Really great combination, but they have to be the homemade kind, not some frozen garbage.
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