Maw Maw makes the absolute best biscuits, so you're gonna want this recipe. They're crispy on the bottom but fluffy and tender in the middle. The biscuits themselves really only require 3 ingredients, so they're super simple. The homemade sausage gravy puts the whole dish over the top, but you could eat these with jam and they'd be just as good.
Prep Time: Cook Time: Serves:
25 Minutes 40 Minutes 6 biscuits + gravy
Biscuits
220g self rising flour
150g buttermilk
60g lard or vegetable shortening
Pinch of salt
Homemade Sausage
450g (1lb) ground pork
3.5g salt
1g sugar (white or brown)
2g poultry seasoning (sage, thyme, onion powder)
1g fresh ground pepper
.5g red pepper flake
Fresh thyme for extra credit
Sausage Gravy
450g breakfast sausage
Butter as needed
50g all purpose flour
500g Milk
Salt, pepper, hot sauce
Step 1: Make Sausage
Add your pork to the bowl and add all of the listed seasonings. Use your hand to mix this together until you start to see the fat start to strand and the whole mix becomes a little more sticky. This usually takes a few minutes of kneading, but the process is really straightforward. If you want to check the seasoning levels, you can cook a small piece in a pan (or the microwave) and taste it to make sure. Let this rest while you make the biscuits.
Step 2: Make Biscuits
Preheat your oven to 400f. Add your self rising flour to a large bowl, and then, using a knife or pastry blender, cut in your lard. Do this until the fat is much smaller and evenly distributed into the flour. Stir in your buttermilk with a fork until it's just barely come together. Begin gently kneading this with your hands until it's just shapeable. The nice thing about these biscuits is that they don't require any rolling or cutting. To shape them, simply grab a small handful and pat them down into small disks. I like to do this very gently while forcing them into odd shapes, that way they puff up more in the oven. Place them on a tray and put them into the oven for 22-28 minutes. They need time to rise and crisp up on the bottom. The tops should be golden brown, and the bottoms should have a real crunchy texture. Remove them from the oven and let them cool on a rack. Extra credit if you brush butter over the top while they're still warm.
Step 3: Make Gravy
Grab a cast iron, mostly because it just feels right for biscuits and gravy and place it over medium high. Add your sausage to the dry hot pan. Break up the pieces constantly so you have a good mix of large and small pieces. There should be enough fat released from the sausage to cook the pork, but add butter if yours looks a little dry. The small ones brown more deeply but the larger pieces stay moist, it’s a nice contrast. Once cooked, add 50g of all purpose flour and mix that into the fat. There should be a roughly equal part of fat to flour here. This is our roux that’s gonna thicken the milk to make the gravy. Let this cook for a couple of minutes until the color of the flour just starts to change. This leaves you with less raw flour flavor. Add in your milk slowly while mixing just to ensure there are no lumps. Let this come to a simmer and just bubble away for a few minutes. The texture is super easy to adjust as needed with more milk. Crack in a ton of black pepper and season with salt and a little hot sauce if you like. I think gravy like this should have specks of pepper all throughout. Taste this for final seasoning and serve over your biscuits. Feel free to fry an egg and place that on top for a more complete breakfast.
Cheers!
Comments