Gathering Around The Grill: Pulled Pork Poutine

Monday, August 11, 2014

Pulled Pork Poutine

August has been a crazy, wonderful month so far, with family gatherings rolling from one into the next. The Wolfe Island Family Ball Tournament drew the full range of family to our cottage, from Grandma, to brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews........ Too many to count. This meant that meals flew in and out of the cottage at break-neck speed as well.

Champions heading into the finals!

With the Wolfe Island Music Festival happening this weekend, our kids and their friends were given orders to do some grocery shopping and come prepared to make their meals outside, using our extra Broil Kings. It was a popular idea, with everyone pitching in to make their favorite dishes- to serve 20 people! In true collaborative spirit, we came up with a fabulous feast on Saturday night. We had no idea what we were going to make, until everyone put their food and ideas together. As I always say, when in doubt, make pulled pork. As it turned out, one of the highlights of the meal was the Pulled Pork Poutine –the recipe follows! It was an innovative way to combine 2 of our basic barbecue go- to dishes, pulled pork and roasted potatoes, to feed a crowd!

PULLED PORK POUTINE

This is one of those dishes that works best when you draw from your arsenal of easy, everyday recipes.

What you need is: pulled pork, roasted potato wedges, cheese curds and gravy. We had to resort to using cheddar cheese curds, although Andy and Dylan, who live in Montreal tell us that poutine aficionados would never use orange curds! But, as previously stated, this was a “make a meal out of what you have” night, so since orange cheese curds were available, that is what we used! (This is a style of cooking that you quickly master when you live on an island!)

Follow the link to our previously published recipes for Pulled Pork.

Grilled French Fries

3 pounds potatoes

4 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat barbecue on HIGH for 5 minutes, adjust temperature to MEDIUM

Scrub potatoes and pat dry. Slice into wedges, keeping skin intact. If preparing ahead, soak in a large bowl of water. Drain well, pat dry and proceed with the recipe.

Toss in a large glass bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Spread evenly over an oiled and salted Grill Topper, or baking sheet, and place directly on top of grids. Grill for 30 minutes, turning once or twice until golden and crispy.

For the gravy : we used the drippings from the diffuser pan. It is essential to start with a very clean pan. Monitor the water level, making sure that it doesn’t dry out. Towards the end of the cooking time, let some of the water cook down. Upon removing the pork from the smoker, we pulled out the diffuser pan and let it cool, while the pulled pork rested, wrapped, for a few hours(as directed in the recipe). We had about 2 cups of liquid left, after skimming off the fat from the drippings.

Pour the drippings into a medium sauce pan, and bring it to a boil. Mix a slurry of ½ cup of cold water and 1 ½ tbsp of flour in a glass jar, shaking well to mix. Slowly combine the flour slurry with the pan drippings, whisking well and continue to stir until the gravy thickens. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Let cool slightly.

Assemble the poutine by placing a layer of roasted potato wedges on a LARGE platter. Top with a layer of pulled pork, then a layer of cheese curds. Over top of the cheese curds, ladle the gravy until the platter is covered with a shallow layer of gravy- DIG IN!!!