The Foods of Our People

This month's potluck club theme was "The Food of Our People", which included family recipes, foods from places we grew up, and food from the old country. I don't have an "old country" so much, or really even family recipes, but man did I grow up eating a lot of tritip roasts. I make a rub that comes out to a quarter cup or so, made of a lot of parsley ground with coarse sea salt in a mortar and pestle, and then I add fresh ground pepper and stir in a bunch of crushed garlic. I take about a third and dry rub it onto the roast, and let it sit in the fridge for an hour. Then I add a little less and rub just before it goes on the grill. The remainder of the rub gets mixed with two tbsp good butter (Ina Garten style!). The meat gets seared, and then cooked on medium heat, and when it's pulled, the meat needs to rest a good ten minutes, but while it's resting I spread the butter mixture evenly on top.

For husband's people, we made poutine. Here's my recipe for poutine gravy that was made vegan only by the substitution of a vegan butter sub.
mushroom stock
dried porcini mushrooms
soy sauce
a red wine with body
fresh rosemary
fresh thyme
shallots
flour
butter
garlic cloves
starch - corn, potato, tapioca, or arrowroot powder

Heat half mushroom broth half water (I did 3/4c each), then add a handful of dried porcini mushrooms to reconstitute for 20 minutes. Mix a little of your starch with water and set aside.

Make a blond roux, and caramelize chopped shallots in it. Then pour in 5 cups mushroom stock, 1 cup hearty red wine, and two tbsp soy sauce, followed by the mushrooms reconstituting and the juice, being careful to leave behind a little liquid with sand and stuff that falls to the bottom. Whisk in four whacked garlic cloves, two branches of fresh rosemary, and a handful of fresh thyme branches.

Reduce by half and strain into a bowl or boat. Whisk in your starch mixture a little bit at a time until the back of a spoon stays coated to your preferred thickness.

Pour over fries and cheese curds for delicious.