Part of my heritage is French Canadian, and it just seemed wrong that something like cholesterol could impede my ability to celebrate the food of my ancestors. Those brave French men and women who landed on the shores of New Brunswick after their long journey across the Atlantic, and warmed their hand around the, um, deep fryer.

There’s nothing we like more than a food related challenge, and we endeavored to discover if there was some way we could make poutine less bad for us. We knew there had to be a way.

We already knew how to make our own oven fries. We started with cute little taters and cut them up into thin wedges.  We used 3/4 lbs potatoes = 240 calories (0 fat). Instead of using lard or duck fat as the traditional recipe requires, we used a tablespoon of canola oil. Canola oil is the least bad vegetable oil. One tablespoon canola oil, is 124 calories, 13 grams fat, one gram saturated fat.

For some reason, Dave has probably more than a lifetime supply of poutine gravy mix. He has a friend that brings him gravy packets every time she visits Montreal. If we ever have to live through nuclear war, the second coming, or a zombie infestation, we will certainly not lack for poutine gravy.

The strange thing is that this gravy is vegetarian. It’s made with soy material, vegetal material and brown stuff. And it’s pretty tasty. You dump it in a pan and add water and stir. 1 cup poutine sauce = 60 calories (0 fat)

Next was figuring out the cheese and this was going to be harder. Cheese is just inherently not good for you. Normally, the cheese curds sort of make the dish but they are so bad for you. It’s a goddamned conundrum.

We didn’t want to try any sort of fake cheese or non dairy cheese. We are trying to be healthy, but we didn’t want eating this to be torturous. So we opted for a block of part skim mozzarella. It wasn’t going to have the squeak of cheese curds, but it was going to melt really nice. Two oz part skim mozzarella = 180 calories (12 grams total, 7 grams saturated)

Here’s our fries, getting toasty in the oven. These are the easiest thing in the world to make. You don’t need pre-made frozen fries. You can make them yourself. And then you know what’s in them. And you can feel superior and self righteous.

Look at these! Professional!

I should say that when I say “we” when describing the cooking in this post, it really means “Dave.” But “we” is such a handy phrase.

Below, we have assemblage action. Hot fries, cheese cubes, and hot gravy.

Often, people miss and important step at this point. Yes, you can start eating right now.

But it’s better to cover the whole plate and let the heat melt the cheese into the gooey lumps it was meant to be. You don’t want chewy cheese, do you? The answer is no. You don’t want chewy cheese. You want melty cheese.

Here’s the money, right here. Fricken yum, people.

We added fresh parsley, because we like to be dainty. It was totally edible. Delicious, even. Even kind of fun. It was a decent, meal-sized amount. Here was our estimated calories for this dish, which we shared: 600 calories, 25 grams fat, 8 grams saturated fat. For comparison, here is the dietary info for a small serving of poutine from McDonald’s in Canada. Or here is one from Burger King. Holy crap, they are trying to kill us.

Ours was largely guilt free. Somewhere in our ancient, lizard brain, we might realize, “There’s no duck fat up in here!” But we must temper our lizard brains, because we are no longer running across the tundra with spears, trying to catch our dinner.

I always marvel at at sleek, hyper engineered new restaurants in overwhelmingly giant spaces. I always wonder who has the money to create these ventures. Someone has a vision. But I wonder how they pay the rent.

Everything we put in our mouths at Lincoln was well executed and tasty. The menu is downright dainty. We started with fried fennel fritters with a Meyer lemon sauce. And of course, we ordered poutine, which came with a lamb gravy. We had never seen lamb gravy on poutine before. I normally don’t order lamb if given the choice, so we were curious how this was going to taste.

Oh my. I’m pretty sure this photos doesn’t make it look delicious. But it was. Oh, how it was. There was a lot of ultra-tender bites of meat, with hearty, well bodied, and dare I say soulful gravy. The curds appeared to be cheddar and the fries were up to snuff. It was a delight. The kind of dish you regret having to share. The kind of dish where you wish you could go back in time, to alert your past self to ditch the boyfriend for a night and take yourself out to dinner so you don’t have fend off the poutine with your fork.

We squeegeed up the last bit of gravy with the last bit of our fries. Ultimately, it is better to share such a dish so that you have equal chances clogging your arteries. We continued to nosh, he on a panzanella salad and I on a spaghetti squash gratin.  I have lately come to enjoy spaghetti squash quite a lot, and historically have never refused anything made into a gratin. The combination seemed like it might have been virtuous. But it was not. It was utterly decadent. It was heavy and rich and wonderful.

In total, not the healthiest meal I’ve ever had. As the waiter cleared our plates, I joked that I would next order a stick of butter. Instead, (yes, we kept going), we had a slice of orange cake and a “44 Cordial.” This was a house made liquor, starting with rum, and orange and coffee beans. The orange is slit 44 times, and 44 coffee beans inserted into the slits. Then it is left to infuse for 44 days. We liked it. It was sweet, but not sickly. It was citrus, but it was warm and buttery from the coffee beans. We resolved to try making it ourselves. We will let you know in 44 days.

In all, Lincoln had a hip atmosphere, suitable for a date, and interesting, well-crafted food that was a pleasure to eat. And that poutine [Update: happy hour menu only]. Wow. Perhaps our favorite so far in Portland. We will be back.

Lincoln
3808 N Williams No. 127
Portland, Oregon 97227
Phone: 503.288.6200
Web: www.lincolnpdx.com

There has been no arm twisting to find reasons to visit local restaurants serving poutine. It merely takes being “in the neighborhood.” Oh, we’re in SE Portland? There’s a restaurant serving poutine just a mile away? A couple streets over? Well, we should go. We’re in the neighborhood.

With the increasing amount of restaurants serving poutine in Portland, we have no reason to neglect our investigative journalistic duties. We are cognizant of our weighty responsibilities. Though we are trying to limit our poutine intake to one session a week. Before my ass gets too weighty.

We surely didn’t get enough calories over the Thanksgiving holiday, so we were delighted this past weekend to find ourselves near Savoy Tavern and Bistro. We got ourselves warm drinks and ordered the poutine as our appetizer.

To the uninitiated, this may look less than appetizing. But the generous cover of poultry gravy concealed a nest of crispy shoestring fries and divine melted cheese curds. This was perhaps the first instance of restaurant poutine that did not leave us wanting for more cheese. The portion was generous and required twirling our forks to capture all the melty goodness.

The gravy was tasty and well seasoned, even if our server wasn’t exactly sure what kind it was. The fries were crispy enough not to get too mushy. Of course, we ate it fast enough that the fries didn’t have a chance. Poutine, like biscuits and gravy, is best hot and eaten quickly.

We were happy about enjoying traditional poutine without someone having to make it fancy or interpretive of something else. There was no bacon, or mushrooms or other weird stuff. Sometimes the original concept is just fine.

Poutine at Savoy Tavern is the real thing.

The rest of our meal, mine mac and cheese, his a smoked trout plate, were both quite good. We will surely go back to Savoy Tavern.

Savoy Tavern and Bistro
2500 SE Clinton St
Portland, Oregon 97202
Phone: 503.808.9999
Web: www.savoypdx.com

Look at that orange cheese! We had never seen cheese curds at Trader Joe’s before. And when I tossed them into the shopping cart, it made a certain Portland Boy very happy. We already had a seemingly bottomless supply of poutine gravy packets at home. We have used them for other dishes and they are actually quite tasty. And for the potatoes, we used a Cook’s Illustrated (subscription required) recipe for “lighter” oven fries. But be ye not mislead. There was nothing light about any of this. It is unbelievably not light at all.

First, we cut up the russet potatoes into wedges and soaked them in hot tap water for 10 minutes. When I say “we,” I actually mean “Dave.” But it’s easier to say “we.” There are two fewer letters in the word “we.”

We coated a non stick baking pan with a healthy, thick layer of oil. We drained the taters, put some oil on them, tossed with salt and pepper. Then into a very hot oven.

You might think that oven fries are healthier because you cook them in an “oven” as opposed to “deep frying.” But no. There’s still a lot of oil involved. It’s not deep frying, but it less like baking and more like “shallow frying.”

Meanwhile, let’s look at our orange cheese curds, shall we?

Or perhaps not. Sometimes we don’t need to know what we are eating. Moving along here.

Our fries have browned up nicely and we have slaved over our poutine gravy (add water, stir.)

The fries get a quick pat dry with paper towels and are plated.

Look at those beauties! Hard to believe they are homemade!

Next comes the not-fattening-at-all orange cheese curds.

Mmmm. Melty orange curds. Then gravy. It’s vegetarian gravy! Healthy!

We serve our poutine with wine in our house. Because we are classy.

Wow. What an enjoyable, delicious way to accelerate a cardiac arrest. Our one disappointment was how salty it was. Since there is so much salt in the gravy and even in the cheese curds, we won’t add salt to the fries next time.

You don’t need specific poutine gravy to make this, by the way. You can make a chicken or poultry gravy and it will work just fine. Or even veggie gravy.

It’s easy to make really delicious, horribly bad for you food at home!