Archive: Arts & Entertainment

It is just getting cold outside. The moist wind chills one to the bone. The mind turns away from cold salads with a vengeance. Thanksgiving has put us even more firmly in a comfort food mood. What is so special about Thanksgiving food? The core ballast attending the turkey is usually potatoes and gravy, stuffing and gravy too if you’ve been lucky. How do we carry on the warm food spirit? Well… we’ll need gravy again. Just ask the men in the family. Unanimously, they will vote for gravy of any kind.

 In the old days, Grandma would make gravy from the pan drippings of whatever meat was roasted. We’ve got things easy these days, boullion cubes, flour, water and a few seasonings get us there in the blink of an eye. Quicker than that is the bottle of prepared gravy from the gravy section of the local supermarket. Some of the prepared gravies are quite good these days. Well whatever the gravy you use, you will need something to drape it on. Funds are low though and the next paycheck has to stretch beyond belief. The all-American biscuit can still carry its weight in an economic pinch.

The origin of the word biscuit is Latin via France. It means twice- baked. The Italian ‘biscotti’ is a sweet pastry cookie that is sliced and then baked again to make long enduring biscuits of a nutritious nature. The British ‘hard-tack’, was a twice-baked coarse flour biscuit that along with sauerkraut, allowed the English to dominate the high seas for several hundred years. It was in Canada and North America, that biscuits began to connote a softer bread product, baked only once (Wikipedia). The flour and lard blend was lightened by adding baking soda and milk.

To many households today, a biscuit is synonymous with Bisquick.  Bisquick is easy, but I argue that biscuits are just as easy from scratch, and taste better too.

Growing up there were 2 types of soft baked breads that were the cornerstone of our table; Baking Powder Biscuits and Popovers. Now these are very different beasts although equal in their contribution to a carbohydrate induced joy. The key to a great biscuit is just enough mixing and a short time in high heat. Of course making sure that your baking powder has not expired (~2 years if sealed in a zip-lock bag), or absorbed unpleasant refrigerator odors is critical. I find baking soda useful for many other cleaning chores so I open a new box every couple of months.

The Joy of Cooking specifies sifting the baking soda, because small clumps can produce brown and bitter spots in the biscuit. In spite of this specific, Joy assures us that biscuits are easy to make and variations in flour to liquid ratios still produce decent biscuits. Cut the shortening (butter/ Crisco) into the dry ingredients until they are smaller than pea size. Mixing of the wet ingredients beyond a quick stir releases gluten from the flour and makes the biscuit tougher.

Biscuits need not be rolled and cut out, but can simply be dropped on a cookie sheet. Any rolled biscuit recipe can be turned into a drop biscuit by adding 1/4-1/3 milk to the ingredients to make a moister batter. I like to make the drier rolled biscuit batter but I quickly  scoop biscuit portions in to my hand, lightly mold them and place in a 9x9 baking pan, fairly close together, so that when they puff up they seal together and you break them apart again as they leave the pan. This ensures that the biscuit is moister on their sides which I prefer. Creativity should be encouraged. Additions to the batter, such as: chives, rosemary, cheese, chili peppers, and dried fruits change the mood but not the satisfaction. 15 minutes later Wha Lah!

Popovers are the traditional accompaniment to a roast beef in ‘Old Britain’. The muffin tin is coated with beef fat drippings (heart attack food☺), or a little butter, and placed in the oven at  425 F to pre-heat for 5-10 minutes. The batter is a very liquidey, egg batter, elegant in its simplicity. Pour the batter directly into the muffin molds about 2/3 full and place back in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The color of the popover should be med. golden brown, the edge should feel fairly crisp when tapped. They will have puffed up amazingly. Upon removal from the oven they should be served immediately. Don’t worry, they will deflate some, but it makes a perfect pocket for butter, gravy, or jam- depending upon your taste.

(See the Recipe section for Baking Powder biscuits and popover recipes.)

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