This MPSIMS thread got me thinking. Biscuits and gravy are a tasty Sunday breakfast once in a while and, although I’d like to make some, I’m not sure how.
A basic recipe was given in the thread, but does anyone have any particularly tasty specializations?
The three most common gravy variations that I know of are chocolate , red-eye (coffee), and tomato but I can’t recommend any of them as even the idea of the first two make me nauseated and I’ve just never gotten around to trying the third.
I can get you our gravy recipe from work tomorrow. It’s a killer sausage gravy.
I make sausage gravy, but I don’t have a recipe. I crumble and fry sausage, any kind that has some fat that cooks out. Add flour to the pan, stir it around to brown it in a sort of roux, then slowly add milk. Gotta be whole milk, or, if you are daring, half and half. Stir the milk in slowly to avoid lumps, until you reach the thickness you like. Simmer a little at low heat and taste, adding salt and pepper as desired. I like mine kinda peppery myself. Serve over home baked biscuits. Both at home and at work I use the basic biscuit recipe from The Joy of Cooking, but there are scads of good biscuit recipes out there.
I’ll check back in tomorrow with the gravy recipe from work. I don’t make it so I don’t know it by heart, the way I do the biscuits.
It’s really very easy. Here’s basic cream gravy (I’ve made it with ground beef, pork sausage and Italian sausage):
1 lb ground beef, lean, or ground sausage
a little cooking oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
ground sage, to taste (optional)
2-3 TBSP flour
2 cups or so of milk, any variety, although if you use skim, I’d recommend adding a couple TBSP of butter at the end
salt
shitload of pepper
Brown the meat on med-high. If the meat is very lean, you will need to add a bit of oil. When the meat is about done, add the onion and continue cooking until onion is soft. If you are using sausage, you may have to drain off some grease. Leave a bit in the pan with the meat and onions. Sprinkle the flour over the whole thing and mix in well. Brown the flour a bit, stirring. This makes a roux, which is important for any gravy.
Add the sage or any other herb you care for, then dump in the milk. Bring to a boil, stirring, and reduce the heat a bit. Continue to cook until thickened, then add the butter at the end. If the gravy is too thick, stir in some more liquid. If it won’t thicken, mix some flour and softened butter together and add a bit at a time. When done, top with ground pepper and mix in.
I lost my biscuit recipe, but it’s on the side of the Clabber Girl baking soda tin.
For the gravy I like to cook about half a dozen slices of good bacon. I take the bacon out of the pan and crumble it up. I add flour to the grease to max a sort of roux, then add milk and stir until it’s smooth. Add the bacon, and sald and coarse pepper to taste. Cook until thickened.
My mother-in-law’s from Oklahoma, and SpouseO uses her recipe to make biscuits and gravy all the time. It’s exactly the same as the one Baker posted. (Onion, Chefguy? In biscuits and gravy? That’s a new one. And this is from someone who puts onions in everything.)
SpouseO (and his mother) sprinkle the flour over the sausage after it’s cooked. But it’s no big deal if he forgets to - he’ll add it at the end as well. Just use a whisk to make sure everything’s combined. The taste is the same.
Oh - use Jimmy Dean’s sage sausage. Apparently it’s the only one to use. According to my husband and his mom, that is.
Onions in gravy for biscuits and gravy? Blech…but then again I don’t like onions. But gravy isn’t meant to have vegetables in it! Blasphemy!
I’ve tried this dozens of times with a variety of sausage brands and I always end up with a nearly dry pan. Seems that Bob Evans and Jimmy Dean and other breakfast sausages are just too lean to allow you to make a good gravy.
Does this jibe with anyone else’s experience?
These are words I never thought I’d hear or read in any context whatsoever. I suspect you’re just not making enough sausage.
I make a mean vegetarian sausage gravy. The Morningstar Farms breakfast patties are the best for this, but they don’t have enough fat to make a roux with and they don’t need browning, so my method is just a little different: Melt 3 T. butter and mix in 3 T. flour. Brown slightly, then stir in 3 cups whole milk at the least and heavy cream at the most decadent. (Alright, alright, you can do it with lowfat milk…but since the veggie sausage is so lean anyway, can’t you afford the good stuff for a special treat?) Crumble up defrosted veggie sausage patties (how many? A box or two, depending on how sausagey you like your gravy) into the gravy, add salt and a lot of freshly ground black pepper. Heat until thickened, stirring constantly.
I use the entire one-pound package. You can understand my confusion!
No. I like greasy sausage, and breakfast sausages are definitely greasy, to the point that it seems like there’s as much rendered fat as there is meat. You are using the big tubes of sausage, right? The links might be leaner (I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I’ve had them), but the tubes that you make patties from are definitely a grease-lover’s delight.
Maybe I’m just cooking it too hot and fast, I’m as surprised as anyone that there’s not that much grease left.
I use a friend’s recipe that is the most delicious in the whole world. I’ll see if I can get his permission to share. But I warn you, it will kill you, via atherosclerosis, but it is worth it.
If you read my recipe (and I defend my onions to the death in beef gravy!!): if the meat is too lean, you will need to add a bit of vegetable oil. You need about three TBSP of oil to mix with the flour to make the roux.
For extra fancy, try using white-pepper instead.
At the risk of offending purists, I will recommend the frozen biscuits I’ve been seeing for a few years now. These aren’t the triple-bleached goo we’ve been eating for years, but actual biscuits frozen before cooking. Biscuits are a pain in the ass, and the clean-up even more so, but though these pucks may not hold a candle to your aunt Magdalene’s biscuits, they’re the best you can get for so little trouble, and I usually find them good enough.
They take about 20 minutes to cook, so you can have them going while you’re making the gravy. I prefer the Mary B’s brand over the Pilsbury, but your tastes may vary. If you haven’t already, run out and try some now. Go on, I’ll wait.
I was just going to suggest that.
My boyfriend and I both love the vegan sausage gravy recipe I make from the Post-Punk Kitchen recipe. (We’re vegetarian, but neither of us is vegan.)
You take the Tempeh Sausage Crumbles recipe given on her website
http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/recipe.php?RecipeID=125
and add it to a pot of pureed white beans, and voila, tempeh sausage gravy.
Sure, it’s not the same as meat gravy, but it is definitely delicious in its own way, and it’s also healthier.
To go with it, I like to use the Joy of Cooking’s oil drop biscuit recipe. It’s much easier than butter to prepare and clean up, and the results are great. Despite their review of their own recipe as “surprisingly acceptable,” I think it’s easier to make good biscuits with the oil recipe because it’s much easier to avoid overmixing the dough.
That’s just. . .wrong. But to each his own.