How to Make Biscuits (After 20 years of trying)

Biscuits were a seemingly simple food that I never managed to make well.   Having married a southerner, this was particularly problematic.  He was raised on light, fluffy, perfect biscuits and my hockey pucks were a source of dread to us both.   In his defense, he, too, tried to duplicate the heavenly orbs of his youth without success, so he sympathized with me and recognized that biscuits were complicated.

This problem came to a bit of a head recently; husband invited a group of colleagues for a real southern meal (he's frying chicken--stay tuned for future post on that).  To round out the meal with full authenticity, biscuits were required.   We considered ordering a tray from Jack McDavid of the Down Home Diner (whose biscuits are stellar),  but it just felt wrong.  I agreed to make that our plan B, but was determined to produce a bona fide biscuit in a dry-run batch the week before the party.

I searched several of my go-to sources for this type of cooking and found solid advice from Lauren Chattman's Mom's Big Book of Baking and Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

I learned the following strategies:

1.  Use 1/2 cake flour and 1/2 all-purpose flour for lighter biscuits.
2.  Use buttermilk instead of milk for best flavor.
3.  For Drop Biscuits (I abhor rolling dough) increase the buttermilk or milk in recipe by 25%.
4.  Cut butter into dry ingredients quickly, either with a mixer, pastry cutter, or 2 knives--do not over work.  Dough should be crumbly chunks about the size of lentils, not a smooth gooey mass.
5.  When adding milk, stir in by hand.  After mixing, dough will have a more formed texture but will still be lumpy and a bit crumbly.
6.  Bake biscuits when butter is still in small, cold bits; this produces air pockets and makes for lightness and fluffiness.

I integrated several different recipes, followed that six pack of tips and came up with the following formula--which, I am delighted to say, was a success!

Finally Successful Drop Biscuits

6 TBS chilled butter cut in pieces
1 c all purpose flour
1 c cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 cup buttermilk

Heat oven to 425.  Line cookie sheet w/ parchment.  Mix everything but buttermilk til small crumbs form.  Mix in buttermilk with spoon.  Drop by large spoonfuls on cookie sheet; each biscuit should contain about 1/3 cup dough.   Bake about 18 minutes til they are just beginning to brown.

Soups of the South

Seeking soups of the south gave me a chance to tap two of my favorite cooking men:  my husband Matt, who hails from Arkansas; and Chef Bill Beck, who was raised in New York, but food-wise he's all New Orleans.

Matt's latest specialty is black-eyed pea soup.  He starts with a meaty ham hock, chops a large onion, a few stalks of celery and carrots, 3 or 4 crushed garlic cloves, a teaspoon of chili powder and salt, and tosses the lot into a big pot with a pound of rinsed black eyed peas.  Or navy beans.  Or whatever beans you have on hand.  He covers the mess with water and simmers for about 3 hours.  Then he pulls the ham off the bone into bite sized bits, tosses it back into the soup, and is ready to enjoy.  [Alternatively, skip the ham hock, buy a 1 lb picnic ham,  cut it into cubes, and add them to the pot--saves the work of picking the bones.]

He recently visited his elderly parents for a few days on the Chilly New England Coast, and while there filled their freezer with a vats of homemade soup--chicken, simmering in the picture above, and black eyed pea.  Clearly he's a keeper.


And no discussion of southern soups would be complete without a mention of Gumbo.  Strictly speaking, Cajun is different from southern, but geographically it's nearby, and since Chef Bill Beck of Beck's Cajun Cafe is a rising star on the Philly Food Scene he warrants some airtime.

Chef Bill Beck with a vat of gumbo.

Chef Beck will be competing in the Reading Terminal Cook-off on February 25 at the Valentine to the Market Gala, but he was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to chat soups with us.  "Gumbo is the quintessential Cajun dish.  The key is a good roux.  You really have to brown the butter and flour mixture thoroughly, constantly stirring for a good while to avoid burning.  The roux forms the base flavor as well as the thickener for the gumbo. "  In addition to gumbo, Bill was kind enough to share his famous oyster stew.  This recipe is a New Orleans version of a dish that is commonly served in coastal areas all over the US.  Bill's rendition would typically be served as a first course for a holiday dinner in New Orleans. 

And finally, we're dying to try this Cope's Corn and Shrimp Chowder, which appeared in the late, lamented Gourmet Magazine's "What is Southern?" issue from January 2008--the only one I saved from my vast subscription.  The chowder is definitely on our agenda soon.  We'll be sure to report the results.

Amanda's Mississipi Cornbread

Elvis came to Jackson, MI to perform at a fundraiser to help tornado victims in the area.  Our Southern neighbor Amanda was lucky enough to see him at this concert, one of his last ever live performances.  She remembers it vividly, and she gets the photo credit, too, taken by her 7 -year old self with her Kodak Instamatic and carefully lifted from her childhood scrapbook for our use.  Thanks, Amanda!

Mississippi. 

The name is evocative of fragrance, sounds and textures; sweet Magnolias, sticky Pecan Pie, cornbread and biscuits baking.  It also brings to mind that distinctive drawl, y'all, and traditions of southern hospitality.  It's the birthplace of many a famous writer -- Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner come straight to mind.  And of course it's the birthplace of the late, great King of Rock 'n' Roll, Elvis.

We persuaded one Southern Belle from Jackson, Mississippi,  now a Philadelphia transplant, to share her foodie recollections about life in the South.  We asked our neighbor, Amanda, about the truth behind a few Southern cliches:

• that everything is fried (it's true she confesses, her fave fried dish is a fried dill pickle);
• that Southern Ladies favor BIG HAIR.  (Also true, they are prone to over-zealous use of the curlers, but with good reason..the humidity wreaks havoc on the tresses);
• and, that food is central to all large, noisy Southern family gatherings, (Amanda's mama was one of ten children - six girls and four boys so her Grandma's kitchen was always filled with busy bee Aunts!)

Sweetcorn in every shape and form was always on the menu.  It popped up for breakfast (cornbread cut into cubes and boiled up with milk to an oatmeal like consistency, was her Dad's ritual); creamed sweetcorn was a staple side for dinner (roasted or boiled, scraped off the husk then boiled up with oodles of cream, butter and salt and pepper) and then there's the ubiquitous cornbread -- we're all familiar with cornbread, only difference with true cornbread is that in the South, cornbread is made in a skillet. 

According to Amanda: "The secret's in the skillet.  Every house in the South owns at least one heavy cast iron skillet.  The trick I remember was heating the oil in the skillet, in the oven, while mixing the ingredients. Then when you poured in the batter you kind of had a fried crust already."




So here's the recipe to make Buttermilk cornbread Southern-style...

No  skillet on hand? 
Run to the Down Home Diner, Beck's Cajun Cafe or Delilah's
at the Reading Terminal Market for your fix instead!