February 26, 2008
One of these mornings...
I am going to make biscuits and gravy (a dish I have never actually had, but I have heard descriptions of it, and it sounds nice) in the Northern California style: fresh, small-farmed ingredients, homemade sausage, etc.
The trouble is: I am not a baker, and within the area of baking, biscuits are my weakest area. I tend to overwork them, which yields a little hockey puck.
But just having biscuits, sausage and sausage gravy just doesn't sound like a proper breakfast. There should be something sweet, but not too heavy, to go along with all this. I would like to think along the lines of a meyer lemon curd, but I don't think I want to put that on the biscuits that will be drizzled with gravy. However, adding another bread product strikes me as gross...so I am forced to think of little meyer lemon pots de creme with fresh, local berries (you can tell I am planning a bit far ahead here), but is this getting to be too much? Perhaps if I just served mimosas that would do the trick.
Hmmm. I am beginning to understand why I don't go for big breakfasts. All of that work without the benefit of a martini? I suppose one could have a martini at six in the morning, but that sort of thing was never my style. Martinis shouldn't be served too often before five in the afternoon.
So, why am I thinking of fancy breakfasts now? Probably because of my general dissatisfaction with commercial breakfast sausage. I taste these things and think, "well, it's OK, but it could be much better, really." And to spend all that time making sausage and not give it the right setting seems wrong.
Posted by erik at February 26, 2008 4:50 PMI simply put honey on the other biscuits that don't get gravied.
Biscuits, fresh, are one of the great pleasures of life. The secret is a soft wheat flour (low gluten). You then sift in the leavening (I like single action baking powder or you can use cream of tartar and baking soda) and salt. Then you cut in your shortening (lard is ideal if you can find the non-hydrogenated kind - or make your own! or use bacon grease but eliminate the salt). Then let the mixture sit until just before you are ready to bake. Have the oven truly hot, too. The liquid for the biscuits can be water, milk, buttermilk, or light cream. It should be ice cold (similar to a pie crust). Pour it in and gather the dough together until it just holds its shape. Then pinch off equal sized lumps (I use my serving spoon as a guide sometimes) and form them into biscuitty shapes in your hands. Put them on your baking sheet and pop them into your preheated oven for about 7 - 10 minutes depending on how big you make them.
Rolling biscuits is too much work and can lead to a tough rather than tender texture. Just dropping the dough from a spoon makes them tend to fall apart when you anoint them. Forming by hand leads to what I find to be the best results - and I have been making biscuits for 45 + years.
Pennsylvania is a sausage hotspot. From the old school germans to the slavs etc in the northeast to the italians in philly. There's kielbasy shops everywhere. You'll go insane even at the supermarket.
Even the bigger commercial pork operations make good stuff. Hatfield, Dietz & Watson, etc. You can always find at least 4 or 5 brands of scrapple at the supermarkets.
I guess biscuits & gravy is more of a southern thing, but you see it in PA at lots of diners. That and the famous S-O-S: creamed chipped beef.
My brother often gets the sausage gravy over homefries.