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View Full Version : Biscuit time! (we haven't had a good food thread for a while)



Rich Engelhardt
03-08-2012, 9:26 AM
Beer Biscuits

2 cups of Bisquick.( I know "purists" scoff at it, but, I like it)
1/3 cup of beer.
1/3 cup of milk
3 eggs.
1/3 cup of butter.


Mix and let stand for 20 min, then mix again.

Drop the dollups on a greased sheet (bacon dripping preferred)

Bake @ 425 until firm and a bit golden brown then brush some melted butter on top for the last 2 min.

Garlic and/or shredded chedder cheese optional and/or a good variation.

Ryan Mooney
03-08-2012, 1:27 PM
Cream Biscuits.

I like these because they're so easy and are darn good. If you've never made biscuits, these are hard to mess up.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tbsp - 1/4C sugar (optional but they brown better with at least a little)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (the thicker the better)

Oven to 425°F
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
Fold in 1 1/4 cups cream. I use a fork to mix it in..
If it doesn't pick up all of the flour mix, add more cream a little at a time until you have a nice lump of dough.

Gently press the dough all together into a nice lump with your hands, maybe fold once or twice to even out any dry or wet spots..

Press dough out to about 3/4 inch thick and cut into rounds. Gather dough scraps and continue to make rounds.
Or alternatively just pinch off lumps and make form of biscuit.
The cut ones are more layered, the pinched ones are more lumpy. Depends on what you like.

Cook 12 to 15 minutes

Best with milk gravy or sorghum molasses :cool: but good any way you serve them

Belinda Barfield
03-08-2012, 3:51 PM
I don't believe I have ever heard of making biscuits with eggs. Interesting . . .

ray hampton
03-08-2012, 6:00 PM
I don't believe I have ever heard of making biscuits with eggs. Interesting . . .

belinda, how can you smile when you say this ?

Van Huskey
03-08-2012, 6:11 PM
Ingredients
2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease miniature muffin pans.
Mix the flour and butter together, add the sour cream, and blend well. Place spoonfuls of the batter in the muffin pans. Bake until golden, 8 to 10 minutes.


Belinda, I must admit I have never made a biscuit with egg in the recipe either but I make a biscuit using the above receipe but in full size muffin pan with egg in the biscuit.

I use the dough to make a cup then pour beaten eggs (like you would scramble) into the "cup" and put a top on like a pie. An egg biscuit... You can also add pre-cooked bacon crumbles etc.

Joe Angrisani
03-08-2012, 7:08 PM
I want to hear our Julip Lady's biscuit recipe.....

Belinda Barfield
03-09-2012, 2:37 PM
Pick up my phone.
Call my mama.
Request biscuits.
Drive 1.5 hours.
Remove biscuits from oven.
Enjoy!:D

ray hampton
03-09-2012, 6:00 PM
do your mother bake biscuits from a recipe or from scratch ?I need the recipe including the type of flour

Belinda Barfield
03-09-2012, 6:55 PM
Scratch . . . so do I . . . no real recipe to follow.

David Weaver
03-09-2012, 8:08 PM
2 1/2 cups a/p flour
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 stick of butter - unsalted, cold cut into the flour in small pieces
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder

gotta add more salt if you want it to taste like a restaurant biscuit

I found that online somewhere, don't remember where. Just made it and ate two of them.

Beat the egg and milk together, mix them into everything else after the butter has been cut into the dry mix.

knead it until it has a nice uniform spring, and cut and bake. glaze it with an egg wash if you like brown.

Joe Angrisani
03-09-2012, 8:10 PM
Scratch . . . so do I . . . no real recipe to follow.

So some times you start with flour, sometimes you start with breadcrumbs, sometimes you can even start with instant grits? I never woulda guessed. ;)

Randy Moore
03-09-2012, 9:11 PM
I need to stay away from these food threads.
I just finished 3 double hamburgers and fixin's.
You made me HUNGRY

Belinda Barfield
03-10-2012, 8:31 AM
So some times you start with flour, sometimes you start with breadcrumbs, sometimes you can even start with instant grits? I never woulda guessed. ;)

LOL, okay Joe, I'll tell all I know about biscuits.

I first learned to make biscuits with room temperature lard, then my mother switched to Crisco. My ex MIL made the best biscuits I've ever eaten and she swore by Snow Drift shortening. When I am in a hurry, I cheat and use Southern Biscuit Formula L Complete Biscuit Mix. I can't find it locally so my mother brought me a 5 lb bag when she came to visit last Tuesday. This is one of those measure and just add ilk or buttermilk mixes.

None of the scratch recipes I use turn out those tall, giant, "sandwich" biscuits that you get from fast food joints and restaurants. I prefer the biscuits I grew up on which are thinner, have a golden crust, and tender flaky interior. These biscuits are meant for soppin' up syrup or gravy. If you don't know what sopping is, here you go:

sopped, sopˇping, sops
1. To dip, soak, or drench in a liquid; saturate.
2. To take up by absorption

1. A piece of food soaked or dipped in a liquid.
2.a. Something yielded to placate or soothe.
b. A bribe.
[From Middle English soppe, bread dipped in liquid, from Old English sopp- (in soppcuppe, cup for dipping bread in); see seuhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/schwa.gif-2 in Indo-European roots.]

Note under 2, something used to placate or bribe, babies in my family were often given a piece of biscuit soaked in milk as a sop.

So, now that you know more of my family history that you ever cared to know, on to biscuits.

My great grandmothers and grandmothers all had a "biscuit bowl" which was a large shallow wooden bowl used specifically for making biscuits. Biscuits were a meal time staple in the old days when everyone (my family members) lived on a farm and cooked on a wood stove - except for my great grandfather who was a swamper, but that's a story for another day. I don't have a biscuit bowl so if anyone has one sitting around that you want to get rid of, give me a shout.

Put a large quantity of self rising flour (originally AP flour with salt and baking powder) in your container of choice - this needs to be pretty large so that you can properly mix the biscuits. Using your fist, make a shallow well in the middle of the flour. Pour in some buttermilk - sorry, I can't be more precise than "some", it's something you learn to eyeball. Take one small handful of shortening, two if the preacher is coming or you have a big family, and place this in the buttermilk. Using your hand, incorporate the shortening into the buttermilk and flour by squishing the shortening between your fingers, swishing the buttermilk, and working in the flour a little at a time. When the dough is the consistency that you want it, you do one of the following:
1) pinch off a portion and roll it between the floured palms of your hands, patting into a reasonable form of a circle to the thickness you desire and place on a greased or nonstick baking sheet.
2) place dough on a floured surface, roll out or pat out, and cut with a biscuit cutter or glass dipped in flour.
Bake the biscuits at whatever temperature your are cooking everything else in the oven until golden brown. I prefer 400 to 425 degrees.

Too much flour and your biscuits will be dry and crumbly, too little flour and they will spread out and flatten and be more like cookies than biscuits.

You will have a good bit of flour left over. After you're done making the biscuits you sift the flour to remove any small bits of dough that you missed, cover with a dish towel, and place the bowl out of harm's way. No, I don't do it this way but my grandmothers did. Remember, they were going to be making biscuits again in just a few hours. My mother keeps her biscuit flour in a large Tupperware bowl. I am wasteful and throw away my excess flour as I don't make biscuits that often and I don't trust that the flour won't go bad and start shooting up the pantry and such.

Five or six years ago I discovered a recipe for biscuits using butter instead of shortening, which is equally as healthy I'm sure. I really like the butter recipe so I use it from time to time. It differs in that you use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour, then add the buttermilk. The recipe specified an amount of SR flour but I don't remember how much so I just throw in whatever looks right and go from there.

Note: if you are going to sop your biscuits you must use Cane syrup, or Cane syrup with butter cut in to it. No other syrup is appropriate for soppin'. If you need Cane syrup let me know, I've got a dealer.

Hope this clears things up for you, Joe. I never start biscuits with cornmeal or grits. :D I do, however, eat biscuits with grits (and Red Eye Gravy on rare occasions).

David Weaver
03-10-2012, 8:36 AM
3 more biscuits for breakfast. :o

This is a dangerous thread.

Jason Roehl
03-10-2012, 9:14 AM
I'm no expert, but I like the scratch biscuits my wife makes. I do know this--they improved by light years once a friend told us this little key to good biscuits--MINIMAL MIXING.

ray hampton
03-10-2012, 11:36 AM
3 more biscuits for breakfast. :o

This is a dangerous thread.

dangerous thread or not ,I want the home biscuits with gravy and eggs + bacon or sausage

Ryan Mooney
03-10-2012, 12:24 PM
Put a large quantity of self rising flour (originally AP flour with salt and baking powder) in your container of choice - this needs to be pretty large so that you can properly mix the biscuits. Using your fist, make a shallow well in the middle of the flour. Pour in some buttermilk - sorry, I can't be more precise than "some", it's something you learn to eyeball. Take one small handful of shortening, two if the preacher is coming or you have a big family, and place this in the buttermilk. Using your hand, incorporate the shortening into the buttermilk and flour by squishing the shortening between your fingers, swishing the buttermilk, and working in the flour a little at a time.

Interesting, this highlights an important regional variation in ingredients. If you tried to do that with the default "all purpose" flour up north you'd end up with a bunch of bricks, but it works perfectly well where you are.

Short version: The difference is that most northern all purpose flour has around 10-12% protein and southern is closer to 8% (being made almost exclusively from soft winter wheat). If anyone north of the sweet tea line wants to try this technique, use "cake" flour which is about as close as we can get up here (its not the same, but short of importing flour across state lines for biscuity purposes its as close as you're going to get).

So if you have to go visit your Yankee friends, you'll have to bring your own flour cause they don't make it right up there :D

Longer version:

Protein in flour is also known as gluten and that's what makes dough "stick together" (yeah yeah I'm vastly simplifying live with it :p). There are actually different proteins and "high" and "low" are only sort of meaningful, and other constituents of the grain (ash content, starch amount/type, etc..) as well as the milling and re-blending process can dramatically affect how the four performs. This is why I said that "cake flour is similar but different" because you can have two flours with exactly the same protein content that behave very differently (i.e. semolina which works fantastically for pasta has about the same amount of protein as some all purpose .. which works just ok).

Gluten forms structure in the presence of moisture and forms stronger "bonds" over time or with agitation (aka kneading). If you used the above recipe with northern all purpose you would end up with fairly strong gluten structures and would loose that deliciously light and fluffy character that epitomizes the southern biscuit. All of the "cutting in the shortening" and "mix the butter in first" stuff northern recipes do is - at least partially - to retard gluten formation (the fat acts as a limiter on where the gluten bonds can form). You are also forming little "fat pockets" that will melt and serve as a future locus for steam pockets (which is also roughly how puff pastry works..), thus if you leave the fat a little lumpy and then "smear" it slightly while rolling out you will get more layered structure than if you finely incorporate it up front.

The extra kneading and up front moisture addition in Belinda's recipe is actually designed to promote some gluten formation otherwise they would end up flat with the local flour.

On the flip side if you used a northern biscuit recipe with southern flour you would want to cut back on the fat some or you'd end up with "greasy biscuits" as they wouldn't have enough structure to hold the fat in place (or just knead them for a minute or so would likely work ok - I have minimal experience with real southern flour)...

For the fat my dad swears by bear lard. He says that it has a finer structure/grain than pig lard and makes the best biscuits (I think I might have had bear biscuits once when I was really young but don't actually remember them specifically.. I know he'd shot a bear every so often and there was some "discussion" when the lard was rendered out.. apparently there was a "distinctive" smell to the house for a while afterwards).

Belinda Barfield
03-10-2012, 3:44 PM
LOL . . . only on SMC . . . my where a biscuit thread can go. Thanks Ryan. I'll take my own flour and grits whenever I head north. Never knew there was a difference in flour from region to region.

ray hampton
03-10-2012, 5:07 PM
you learn something new to you today Belinda , search the internet for stores that sell your favorite flour or cornmeal, every meat or other food that get recall because of a health risk do not cover every state

Joe Angrisani
03-10-2012, 5:42 PM
Thanks Belinda! I'll try your unrecipe tomorrow morning. My wife and I love biscuits with jam or the neighbor's honey when we have our morning caffeine.

Van Huskey
03-10-2012, 6:10 PM
Now we have the biscuits covered who is making the saw mill gravy, no red eye for me, but you can make tomato gravy for my wife.

BTW my mother (and grandmother) made biscuit the same way as outlined by Belinda. She never ever measured anything. I used to like to sift the flour for her when I was little.

I also did not know flour varied so much from region to region, very interesting.

ray hampton
03-10-2012, 6:40 PM
Van , you can but tomato gravy in your corner store , they call it tomato catsup [no pun intended ]

Joe Angrisani
03-10-2012, 8:00 PM
"Gravy"

YUK...! Most disgusting thing ever to come out of any kitchen anywhere. There, I've said it. Fire away.

Ryan Mooney
03-10-2012, 9:08 PM
"Gravy"

YUK...! Most disgusting thing ever to come out of any kitchen anywhere. There, I've said it. Fire away.

Heretic! Gravy is the nectar of life :p

I had to look up "saw mill gravy" - we always called that milk gravy, or sausage gravy; my favorite as well. It's also great on pancakes (unless you're a gravy hating heretic).

Never had tomato gravy, interesting I'd expect that with roast beef or something but I'm willing to try it on biscuits :D

Dave Lehnert
03-10-2012, 10:27 PM
Not so much a biscuit recipe but how to fix biscuits sold in stores.

Take one roll of canned biscuits. roll each biscuit in melted butter, then roll in a mixture of Sugar and Cinnamon. Place in a greased pan and bake at 375 degrees for about 20min (or until done) Eat them warm.

You never tasted anything so good. I use to take a pizza pan size batch to work warm and they would be gone in 10min.

Van Huskey
03-10-2012, 10:50 PM
"Gravy"

YUK...! Most disgusting thing ever to come out of any kitchen anywhere. There, I've said it. Fire away.


Wow...

I wonder how many "good" gravys you have been exposed to. For example saw mill gravy (white gravy, milk gravy, sausage gravy) is a Béchamel sauce (milk base/white roux) which is one of the 5 mother sauces, considering it has additional ingredients it would be a "small" or "secondary" sauce, properly presented this old south favorite would be right at home in classical french cuisine, especially if it was made with say andouille. Now you have me thinking of the possibilities.

Van Huskey
03-10-2012, 10:55 PM
Never had tomato gravy, interesting I'd expect that with roast beef or something but I'm willing to try it on biscuits :D

It is a Louisiana thing as best I can tell, not to be confused with what an Italian-American would consider gravy for their pasta. It is a bacon flavored, light (brown but just past white) roux based gravy with tomato and often tomato paste cooked in.

Belinda Barfield
03-11-2012, 9:03 AM
It is a Louisiana thing as best I can tell, not to be confused with what an Italian-American would consider gravy for their pasta. It is a bacon flavored, light (brown but just past white) roux based gravy with tomato and often tomato paste cooked in.

Van, my great grandmother made tomato gravy. They lived near Tallahassee, FL. My great grandfather owned land near Steinhatchee back when it was nothing but a mosquito breeding ground. A main food staple for them was "swamp cabbage", also known now as Hearts of Palm.

Joe Angrisani
03-11-2012, 10:37 AM
Wow... I wonder how many "good" gravys you have been exposed to.....

At least 15 of the 20 or so I've tried over the years have been lead into with "but you haven't had my biscuits and gravy. It's the best." or "You haven't had my Momma's gravy yet..." And every one tasted like sausage grease and wallpaper paste.

Van.... To compare biscuits and gravy "gravy" to bechamel IS heresy. I've never seen or tasted a bechamel made with a sausage grease base.

Joe Angrisani
03-11-2012, 10:45 AM
I'm a little worried about what you Southern folk mean when you say Tomato Gravy. :)

This is my Italian grandmother's Tomato Gravy - what most would call Tomato Sauce. At the risk of thread hijacking, I put it here. I can certainly move it to a new thread, but it kinda flows with our cooking discussion. Biscuits are in the oven, Belinda.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

CONCETTA’S TOMATO GRAVY

Joe Angrisani’s grandmother’s recipe – make no substitutes!J

RECIPE DOUBLES OR TRIPLES JUST FINE


2-3 cloves garlic
1 Tbs olive oil
2 28oz cans Progresso whole Italian tomatoes
2 15oz(2-reg size) cans Hunts tomato sauce
2 8oz(2-small size) cans Hunts tomato paste
1˝ Tbs dried oregano
1˝ Tbs dried parsley
3 bay leaves
1 Tbs sugar
1 lb ground beef (preferably ground chuck)
Italian bread crumbs
1 egg
˝ Tbs dried oregano
1 lb sweet Italian sausage


Slice the garlic thinly and cook in the olive oil (in a large stock pot) over low heat. Do not brown the garlic. Remove the garlic from the oil at the first signs of color. Discard garlic.

Discard the bay leaves from the cans of whole Italian plum tomatoes and pulse-blend the tomatoes slightly to rough-chop them. Don’t make tomato juice! Add the Italian tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, oregano, parsley, bay leaves and sugar to the pot.

In a mixing bowl combine the ground chuck with an equal volume of bread crumbs, the egg and the oregano. Use your hands. This is food of love. Form meat mixture into 2-inch meatballs. Sear/brown on all sides and add the mostly raw meatballs to the sauce.

Cut the Italian sausages in half crosswise and poke the casings on four sides with a fork. Sear/brown on all sides and add the mostly-raw sausages to the sauce.

You are done. All it needs is AT LEAST four hours on the stove, covered, on low low heat. Six hours is better. Stir very carefully once in a while…the meatballs are very fragile for the first 3 hours or so. Use a heat diffuser under the pot if you have ANY doubts about how low you can set the heat. Any burning on the bottom of the pan will destroy the flavor, causing my grandmother to come back and haunt you.

Serve any way you like, but I suggest the first time you serve it over Rigatoni and grate a small amount of real Locatelli Pecorino Romano cheese over it (Locatelli is the brand. Pecorino Romano is the cheese…sheep’s milk cheese. Don’t substitute that salty, flavorless, California or Wisconsin excuse for Romano they sell at most supermarkets). Don’t forget a loaf of Italian bread! And your favorite basic red wine!

Belinda Barfield
03-11-2012, 10:50 AM
Call is what you will Joe, but gravy by nature is made with a roux base. :) Either butter/flour, lard/flour, bacon or sausage grease/flour, or some sort of meat drippings or juices. As a thickener corn starch can also be substituted.

Joe Angrisani
03-11-2012, 12:04 PM
Gram's tomato 'gravy' is an Italian expression as far as I know. Sounds like any southern gravy is roux base, so I see where you're going.

I make a New Mexico-style green chili that gets it's deep flavor from the pork shoulder roux that starts it off. So would that be Green Gravy? :D

..............................

And just to make a footnote: Inflection is easily lost. I'm grinning and having fun as I make fun of "regular" biscuits and gravy gravy and whatnot. Look at it this way: There's more for you guys.

John Lohmann
03-11-2012, 12:27 PM
add 1/2 tsp cream of tartar to basic biscuit recipe, not mix, makes common biscuits better

Mark Ashmeade
03-11-2012, 12:29 PM
Bourbon biscuits (my favourite!)

4 ounces plain flour
˝ teaspoon baking powder
˝ ounce cocoa
2 ounces butter
2 ounces caster sugar or 2 ounces superfine sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
granulated sugar , for coating the biscuits
for filling
1 ounce chocolate , melted
1 ˝ tablespoons water
2 ounces icing sugar or 2 ounces confectioners' sugar , sifted
1⁄8; teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:


1 Sift together flour, baking powder and cocoa.
2 Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy and beat in syrup.
3 Stir in half of the flour mixture.
4 Turn dough on to working surface and knead in remaining flour mixture.
5 Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.
6 Sprinkle top with granulated sugar and press in with rolling pin.
7 Cut dough into neat fingers (approx. 1 x 2 1/2 inches).
8 Lift on to greased baking sheet.
9 Prick each biscuit 2 or 3 times with a fork.
10 Bake at 325oF/160oC/gas mark 3 for 15-20 minutes.
11 Cool.
12 Beat all remaining ingredients for filling together.
13 Sandwich biscuits together in pairs.




Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/bourbon-biscuits-278764#ixzz1opISwqHS

Van Huskey
03-11-2012, 12:59 PM
[QUOTE=Joe Angrisani;1892672]Gram's tomato 'gravy' is an Italian expression as far as I know. Sounds like any southern gravy is roux base, so I see where you're going.

I make a New Mexico-style green chili that gets it's deep flavor from the pork shoulder roux that starts it off. So would that be Green Gravy? :D

I did make a point to differentiate Italian-American gravy from the Southern tomato gravy. I do agree with Belinda that gravy is indeed roux based BUT this is an example of translation not misunderstanding or misidentification.

Van Huskey
03-11-2012, 1:19 PM
Van.... To compare biscuits and gravy "gravy" to bechamel IS heresy. I've never seen or tasted a bechamel made with a sausage grease base.

I am not comparing it to, I am saying it is a Béchamel. I also think the way in which it is transformed into a small sauce follows the ethos of classical French cuisine which I don't think would cause Escoffier to roll over in his grave. Given the current direction of American cuisine in regard to sausage and bacon I would not be surprised see it on the plate of a progressive chef.

We all have out palates and they are all different and frankly I don't like all gravys.

Belinda Barfield
03-11-2012, 1:34 PM
I'm with you Van. I really don't like gravy, other than over roast beef and then it's more of a thickened au jus than a gravy. I do cook one dish though that starts with a gravy base. Brown gravy and a can of tomatoes (basically tomato gravy), add browned boneless pork chops and onions and simmer for 20 or so minutes.

I did make some lovely Butternut Squash soup last night that did not involve either gravy or tomatoes. :D

Leigh Costello
03-12-2012, 1:49 AM
I took my recipe for biscuits and changed it to suit hubby - he likes bread in any form but not lard as shortening - and I use the recipe as a starting point for many quick breads. I use bout 2 to 2-1/2 c. flour (whatever is handy), 1 Tbsp. baking powder, 1/4 c. sugar, 1 egg, 1 c. milk and a splash of vanilla. Mix until wet, add more flour until you can turn out onto a floured surface. Knead a bit until the dough is springy, press into the shape of your pan, cut as desired, dip in melted butter and set in your pan, bake at 425 or so for 15 minutes or so. I often made Mickey Mouse bread as my daughter called it because I used a Mickey Mouse cake pan. Good enough for gravy or they stand on their own fairly well too.

I have lots of variations to suit any meal and there are seldom leftovers. Which is one of the many reasons my basement resembles a workshop on one end and a classy gym on the other. :D

David Weaver
03-12-2012, 8:03 AM
3 more biscuits for breakfast this morning (another small batch yesterday).

And a reiteration of whoever said earlier not to overmix or overknead the dough.