Thursday, April 5, 2007

Biscuits

Biscuits- everyone has their favorite method. Here's mine.

2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup shortening (or lard, if you like to live dangerously)
1-1/4 cup buttermilk

Mix the dry stuff together. Cut in the shortening so the mix looks like coarse cornmeal. Gently stir in the buttermilk, until there's no dry lumps. If the mix is a bit wet, sift in a dab of flour. If it's too dry and won't come together as a ball, add a dab of buttermilk. Try not to work the dough too much, as this makes the biscuits tough.
Pat the dough out onto a floured board until it's about an inch thick. Use a glass to cut out round biscuits, or just cut the dough into squares. Round's more authentic. Frankly, tho, square biscuits taste the same to me.
Put on a greased cookie sheet about an inch apart, and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until they're nice and golden brown.

You know that cream gravy recipe from earlier? Fry up some sausage and crumble it into the gravy, and serve that on top of a split biscuit. Yum, y'all.

Or, soak some thin slices of country ham in water about 10 minutes, then fry in a skillet. When the ham's got crusty bits on it, pour in a cup or so of coffee. Remove the ham and stir the coffee with a whisk to get the crusty ham bits up. This is Red Eye gravy, as I was taught to make it. Like anything, everyone has their own method. My mom puts raisins in hers, which is kinda good in a weird Rootie's Mom sort of way.

Country ham for the uninitiated is salt cured ham, and best eaten in very small doses.

5 comments:

Sweet Daddio said...

And who taught you to make biscuits?

Rootietoot said...

YOU did! Rah!

Donna said...

Do you thicken the red eye gravy at all or is it left more or less like an au jus gravy?

Rootietoot said...

You leave it like au jus. The crusty bits from the ham are important to flavor it.

Donna said...

I have to try this next time my husband is back from NH. Coffee & ham gravy just sounds too good to a coffee lover like me. I'm skipping the raisins though, I never did like raisins.