SOS, aka chipped beef on toast, was one of my mother’s go-to meals when she wanted us to have a hot meal that required little preparation. We always knew she was going to make it when she got out the Buddig packets and the scissors that she really didn’t use for anything else. It was served over toast made from Wonder Bread.
We loved it, TBH. I bet she makes it occasionally, now that she’s only cooking for herself.
You could just do a plain white gravy without sausage, you know?
It’s made from flour, what color should it be? That could just be the Southern upbringing speaking, though.
Depending on how much you cook the roux, you can still get a nice brown gravy from only flour and fat.
Why would I want a plain white gravy, though?
I like a nice brown meat gravy when I’m eating a roast, although I don’t like it so much that I make it very often. But for biscuits? Hot and fresh is just fine. If I happen to be serving them with pot roast, I might use them to mop up the gravy, but I might just serve them aside a soup, and call it a meal. Or with whatever I’m having.
Grease only gravy is what poor southerners ate.
Sometimes that’s all there was. Maybe some greens.
Actual meat in the gravy was a special occasion.
My Granny made gravy with bacon bits, ground pork or pork sausage seasoned with sage. Never salt pork
As @teelabrown says, good biscuit takes skill and practice. One thing I had to learn was not overcut the shortening, You want the particles 1/8 to 1/4 inch in size or the pockets left by the melting fat are too small.
Another possibility is the ratio of dry to wet ingredients being to high (too much flour). I solved that one by going European and weighing the flour instead of worrying about packing it.
Flour is fussy. I’ve taken to always weighing flour. I mostly use volume for other stuff, unless I’m adding it to flour, in which case i might tare my scale and weigh it, too. It leads to a lot of funny recipes, with some ingredients but weight, and some by volume, and some by count (2 large carrots). But it works for me.
Sometimes I like to heat a can of Chunky Vegetable Beef Soup and is served over biscuits.
It’s basically an open face sandwhich using
fresh baked biscuits. A can of soup serves two.
One biscuit gets buttered and spread with strawberry jelly. Dessert
Fried eggs are good over biscuits. The lightly cooked yolk soaks in. Eat with a fork.
I like the frozen, ready to bake biscuits. Walmart Great Value biscuits are pretty good.
Just for the record, I realise this and thought “in the context of ‘biscuits and gravy’” was implied.
Inspired by Alton Brown’s Good Eats, we made biscuits from scratch a few times, and were largely successful, because we were careful (from the episode’s instructions) not to overwork anything and to keep it all cool. We also used his trick (don’t recall if it was the same episode or a related one) of keeping a few heavy sheet pans in the freezer to cool the rolled dough on the counter between folding/rolling sessions.
The results were quite good, but… neither my wife or I come from a biscuit-forward food culture, and felt it was too much work for just the two of us. Still, all of the tricks and tips (including lower gluten options, keeping everything cold, bigger chunks, etc.) were spot on and successful.
I mix mine in a food processor, which is heresy for many. But if you’re careful and keep the pulses to a minimum, it works just fine.
Agreed. I make marvelous pie crust in a food processor, too. Same caution. Barely pulse!
My mother and sister would be spinning in their graves.
LOL, I wouldn’t tell them my method until they got done raving over my fabulous pie crust. It’s every bit as fine as my grandmother’s, if I do say so myself. Hers was the pie crust against which I judge all others – including my own.
Yeah, same here. She taught my sister, who came over one day and taught my wife and I. Light, flaky goodness. And it’s the same principle as making biscuits: a light touch.
I don’t use the food processor because i find it a pita to clean (it can go in the dishwasher, but that means the dishwasher is now full) and i don’t mind doing it by hand. But I’ve tried the food processor method, and it works great. It’s especially good at blending everything quickly, without giving it time to warm up.
I guess, also, my food processor lives in the back of a lower cupboard, and just taking it out and putting it away again it’s a nuisance. We only use it for latkes, and similar large batches of grated stuff. Most food processing in my house is done in a blender or by hand.
Inspired by this thread, i just popped a strawberry rhubarb pie into the oven. My kitchen is too warm today. (76°F) So I made an effort to chill the pie plate and to work very quickly, and to chill between steps. We’ll see how it comes out.
(As i said above, my methods for pie crust, scones, and biscuits are very similar.)
I love strawberry rhubarb pie! So hard to find unless you make your own.
Also, likely to be too sweet unless you make your own.
My biscuits haven’t been rising as well, so I need to do one of two things. I use Irish butter for almost everything, but I think it’s too creamy for biscuit making, as it softens very quickly. I think I either need to go back to an unsalted ordinary butter or else refrigerate my dough.