I taught myself to make biscuits over the pandemic. I don’t do drop biscuits, i do flaky biscuits, using the joy of cooking recipe and all purpose flour. And lots of butter. I roll out the dough and fold it over a few times before cutting the biscuits. And i don’t do southern things with them, like serve them with gravy. I just place them in a basket on the table at dinner time.
They are extremely popular.
But i have a question about biscuits. I understand why drop biscuits are round. But why are cut biscuits traditionally cut into rounds? Cut scones, too. (Which are similar to sweetened biscuits.) Making rounds means that either you throw away a lot of the dough or you end up over-working or, and get a few tough ones.
I roll out my biscuit dough onto a rectangle and cut it into small rectangles with a giant knife, so I can cut the whole thing with one straight-down slice. They seem to cook evenly enough, and come out delicious and flaky.
Possibly because of uneven cooking. Corners have more surface area exposed and are more likely to overbake or burn. Round biscuits have a uniform surface.
Interesting–no salt (Or no salt beyond what’s in the butter)?
I also use the Joy of Cooking recipe as my base, and it’s six ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, butter, and buttermilk. I guess you could leave out the baking soda, relying on baking powder for rising–but I wouldn’t want to leave out the salt.
I don’t add additional salt beyond what’s in butter. I used to only use unsalted butter but have switched for convenience to salted and find it doesn’t make as much a difference as people say it does. (That is, if using salted for unsalted.) That said, feel free to add some. I don’t typically consider it an “ingredient” for the purpose of counting ingredients in a recipe, as there is little I make that doesn’t have some salt in it.
I was at a family event with what would be my in-laws very soon in Memphis and I woke up to a very strange sight. The biscuits I expected, but they had a big bowl of what I thought was steaming hot pudding on the table. When I inquired as to why there was a big bowl of steaming hot pudding on the table they couldn’t believe I had never heard of chocolate gravy. I politely declined the gravy, but I was more than happy to eat two of the homemade biscuits they provided.
It wasn’t until almost 25 years later that I decided to give chocolate gravy a shot. It’s pretty good on biscuits.
How does “chocolate gravy” differ from the chocolate sauce you’d put on ice cream?
Also, if you ladled chocolate gravy over a biscuit and then added a dollop of whipped cream, I’d happily eat that for dessert.
Mainly, there’s some gravy stuff in it, i.e. flour and butter (or your preferred fat).
I admit it sounds odd, but it works somehow. Savory and sweet. Who’dathunkit?
I’ve had it exactly once in my life, so I’m not exactly an expert, but it’s made with flour and butter which is different from the chocolate sauce you’d put on ice cream. It was rather thick, like a gravy, unlike most chocolate sauce I would use for ice cream.
I have many questions-
Are you being serious, or is this a joke?
Are you saying that the biscuits absorb chicken fat from the air in the kitchen or that they are made with chicken fat as an ingredient?
Last time I checkedn, McDonald’s fries contain both dairy ingredients and beef fat. So, Popeye’s biscuits containing chicken fat is certainly plausable.
I looked for any evidence of chicken fat and found this
It is not listed under the allergens.
Huh- a quick Google reveals that ether i was wrong about beef fat in McDonald’s fries or it has since been removed. The current “natural beef flavor” is made from hydrolized wheat and hydrolized milk.
Nothing says lovin’
Like biscuits in the oven.
A bit off-topic but you’re not wrong. McDonald’s fries used to be fried with beef tallow, and that’s what made them taste so yummy. However, back in the early 90s, due largely to health concerns, the company decided to discontinue their use of beef tallow and switched to vegetable oil for all their frying.
Thanks. I was aware of that. The story I heard was -
After switching to vegetable oil, customers acknowledged that the fries were much healthier. But, they tasted terrible. McDonald’s then added tallow to the mashed potato mixture to improve the flavor and continued to publicize that their fries were fried in vegetable oil.
Either the story was a UL (entirely possible) or word got out and McDonald’s switched from adding tallow to their current “natural beef flavor”.
I don’t think the fries are made from a mashed potato mixture – if they are, I’d be highly surprised. They seem like actual cuts of potato in look and texture.
Almost certainly an urban legend. The mashed part is a giveaway - they’re not reconstituted potato sticks.
Large multinational companies don’t advertise putting one thing in their food and then substitute another. That’s a quick way to massive legal action. It’s akin to why they serve “shakes” rather than “milkshakes”. Depending on the state, the milkfat content is too low to count.
It’s up there with “they put horse meat in their burgers” that pops up from time to time for just about every fast food place.
McDonald’s doesn’t use mashed potatoes, those are cut slices of potato. They did use natural beef flavor for a while, and there was a political kerfuffle on India over that. I’m sure they pulled the natural beef flavor in India, but don’t care enough to have followed what they use in the US.
It looks like the actual biscuit recipe Popeyes uses is a trade secret, but there are tons of copycat recipes online, and most of them use butter. Not chicken fat. I guess there could be a little chicken fat for flavoring, in addition to whatever their main shortening is. Using some chicken fat in biscuits is an intriguing idea, i might try l give that a try.
Chicken isn’t a common allergen, and doesn’t have to be listed with allergens.
They are certainly cut. It’s clear from the texture. And the shape, for that matter. Also, when McDonald’s expanded into Europe, they had to bring in American russet potatoes, as the potatoes they could find locally weren’t long enough for their signature fries. That wouldn’t have been an issue if they were using mashed or reconstituted potatoes. I’m sure i can’t find it now, but it was in one of those “human interest” articles the Wall Street Journal used to run on the front page.
The US fries still contain “natural beef flavor,” but, so far as I can research, they are vegetarian but not vegan as that flavoring contains or is hydrolyzed milk. In Canada and the UK and elsewhere, they are vegan. You would think of all things to make sure are vegan at a fast food place is the fries but no. Not in the US, at least.
I had even thought about chicken fat for biscuits until this thread.
Can’t imagine Popeye’s uses it, though. They bake with fat from a cow or a pig in some fashion. Based on the nutritional information, they’re vegetarian but not vegan and contain milk, wheat, and soy products, so probably butter and not a vegetable shortening.
They fry them in the same oil as they fry the fish, don’t they? So I doubt a vegan would be willing to eat them.
I wouldn’t quiet say that. Tallow is legal. McDonald’s never denied using it duing the decades it was in their fryers. The change was entirely due to consumers becoming more health conscious. Plus, their fries did indeed taste terrible after the switch to vegetable oil.
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The mashed rather than cut was my error. I have not eaten at Mcdonald’s in decades except to order a shamrock shake. Sorry.
I also did not mean to derail the thread. Sorry.