Sunday, June 7, 2009

Biscuits and Gravy

A Sunday morning tradition.

It's the Breakfast of the Gods.

Well, it's the breakfast of the Chubby Gods Who Don't Want to Wear a Bikini this Summer anyway.

I don't know about the rest of you but I figure I'm never going to wear a bikini again. Therefore, we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

The first time I mentioned biscuits and gravy over at Under His Hand, I had a couple of folks who live over "across the pond" wondering what in the world I was doing plopping gravy on top of 'biscuits' which are the same as cookies here in the states. When it was put that way even I had to cringe. Gravy and chocolate chips? Ugh!

So, in the interest of wiping that grimace off of the face of our readers from "over there", biscuits here are not the same as biscuits there. Do not, I repeat, do NOT pour sausage gravy over your biscuits. I believe that American biscuits are similar to English scones.

But "Scones and Gravy" doesn't even sound as filling (or fattening!) as "Biscuits and Gravy". So biscuits it is.

There. Now that nothing will be lost in translation, let's get on with it, shall we?

The Cast:



A roll of pork sausage. Hint: Ease your grocery bill and buy that cheap, generic sausage. It makes better gravy because it has more grease. You need grease. Buy the expensive stuff if you must, but you'll only end up adding "grease" in the form of butter. The grease is important!

Milk and flour. Pepper and Lawry's, or plain old salt, are optional and applied to taste.

The biscuits?

I so cheat.

Now, no doubt I'm tarnishing my Domestic Goddess Crown by this admission but I cannot tell a lie.

I can't make biscuits from scratch.

I have tried. And I have failed. Repeatedly.

If you possess the admirable talent of being able to pull fluffy biscuits made by your own two hands out of your oven, then do that. The rest of us will stick with the good ol' Pillsbury doughboy.

Besides, they are "just like homemade!" The little giggling bastard says so.

Step one: Crumble the sausage in a large skillet and start to brown. The size of the sausage lumps depends entirely on how chunky you want your gravy to be. My mom leaves big bite-sized chunks in her gravy. Since I'm not a big fan of hefty chunks of meat (except for Maste-.. oh.. wrong blog. Nevermind.) I'll chop mine up into much smaller pieces.



Meanwhile, make your biscuits. Or, you know, pop open that can. Whichever.



Fry the sausage until it's almost cooked through. That "almost" part is important. I'll explain that later.



If there is not a generous amount of grease in your skillet (because you've gone uppity and used that expensive sausage), then you'll need to plop in a couple of tablespoons of butter to melt.

Remember? No bikinis.

Then sprinkle in some flour.



It's difficult to give a precise measurement for this because it all depends on how much grease your sausage chunks are swimming in. Start with about 1/4 of a cup and stir.




Add more if needed. The grease needs to be absorbed and the sausage pieces need to be coated with flour.




Now, this next part is the step that will make or break your gravy.

Let it fry for another 5 minutes.

This is why you add the flour when your sausage is almost, but not quite, cooked through.

If it's completely cooked through and you still have to fry it another 5 minutes, it'll be crunchy. Blech. Not inedible or anything, just.. blech. Crunchy.

This steps cooks the raw, flour taste out of the gravy. Raw flour gravy IS inedible. So, if you've forgotten and let your sausage cook all the way before adding the flour, do not try and skip this step to avoid crunchy chunks. Just suck it up, do your 5 minutes, and chew your chunks.

Okay? Okay.

Let's move on then.

Next, start adding milk. Pour it on in there. Glug, glug, glug.



Again, it's difficult to tell exactly how much milk to use. Start with about two cups, stir and let it thicken as it simmers. Let them little buggers swim!

Keep swimming! Just keep swimming!

Don't worry. It WILL thicken.



If it begins to look like sausage glue as opposed to sausage gravy, simply add more milk. In about 1/4 to 1/3 cup increments (or just kinda pour-and-pray like I do), letting the gravy simmer and thicken inbetween pours, until you've reached the consistency you prefer. All told, I probably use 3 to 4 cups of milk.

Add seasoning.



Next, take your perfectly baked cheater's biscuits-



Split them and ladle the gravy over.



Optional toppings: Diced onions, grated cheese, eggs. All full of the Nomming.

(The strawberries were added just to make it pretty. I'm not necessarily promoting the taste combination of strawberries and biscuits and sausage gravy.

In fact, the strawberries were left over from chocolate covered strawberries that I had the night before.

Now THAT was yummy.

Chocolate makes everything better, I always say.

Where was I? Oh yeah.)

Serve this to your Man-



-and reap the rewards. This may or may not include permission to go shopping, new purses or many pats on the head.

Hint to mah Man: I accept all of those things. :)

8 comments:

  1. I'm still looking like this: http://idannyb.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/word-sell-shocked-woman.jpg

    I could never, EVER consider making gravy like that. Gravy is something COMPLETELY different, I tell you. And ON scones? (return here to the photo)

    Squick. Gimme my home made scones with real butter and some boiled ham or cheese, or a nice jam. Please.

    Thanks though. Now I actually know what they are. ;) Also, a quick thanks for the posts on Spirit and Attitude. They were great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Okay. So how do you do gravy?

    And maybe I'm wrong on the scones. I'm not really sure what the equivalent is over there!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, gravy to me would be made like this:

    You fry a piece of meat, preferably some beef, in a hot fryingpan till it's medium. Take it out of the pan, and put it on a plate. Pour ½-1/3 of a cup of water in the pan and perhaps add half a brothcube, let that simmer down to about 3-4 tablespoons of liquid. If the meat is giving off liquid on the plate, pour that into the water. Heat some milk or cream or a milk/cream mix. Pour the reduced broth into a glass, add a tablespoon of flour and mix thoroughly. Add that to your cream/milk mixture. Let it thicken.

    As I only make about 2dl (almost ½ a cup) of gravy at a time, the amounts are there after. :) I serve with potatoes or pasta.

    They sure look like scones! What's your problem when you make home made scones?

    Perhaps the idea of scones and gravy is so jarring to me, because I've never actually tasted any. Heck, haven't even smelled it. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Scones are slightly to quite sweet, which would make them really repulsive with sausage (or any other kind) of gravy.

    I have only once in my life been able to eat this dish, when some kind friend found bulk non-pork sausage. It was extremely nommy and I'm keeping my eyes open for more bulk turkey sausage.

    ReplyDelete
  5. NOM NOM NOM!

    I love me sum biscuits and gravy. (Note to non-Americans; biscuits are like small round light and fluffy browned on top and white bread inside delicious pieces of NOM! Bread and drippings would be an equivalent term)

    Kaya, I have longed looked for this recipe; my ex-MIL used to make it and I always order it when it's on the menu at restaurants.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our scones tend to be sweet with dried fruits or just plain (still sweet just no currants) or made with grated cheese. I do make scones with finely choped bacon instead of cheese of rare occasions also.

    They are similar to your biscuits but not the same.
    Its the "gravy" that's ikking me!

    Gravy, when made properly, is the meat juices from the bottom of a roasting tin thickened with gravy browning, corn starch or Bisto( a propriety brand of browning and starch. NEVER never would we Brits put milk in gravy thats just ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Think of using milk to make gravy as making a bechamel sauce (a French white sauce made with scalded milk, flour and butter for those who don't know, although I'm sure all the cooks here already know :)); only, instead of using butter as the animal fat for flavor, you use meat juices instead.

    It can be very good. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm going to take a stab at the biscuits for everyone who hasn't made them before if they're not scones could they in fact be dumplings? Now that would be yummy

    ReplyDelete

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