Biscuits and related matters

Since my last post had no recipes, I'll include three today.

Biscuits. A staple of southern cookery. Truly glorious if prepared well, and utterly abysmal if done badly. The two recipes that follow are the best I've come across. Good luck.

Biscuits

4 handfuls of self rising flour-White Lily please
1 fistful of lard-shortening will do, but lard has a better texture and flavor
"enough" buttermilk or clabber or blue john or pet milk or, well, there are a lot of options.

By handful, I mean as much flour as you can scoop up with a slightly cupped hand. By fistful, I mean about a half a handful. As to "enough", it depends on the liquid used and the looseness of dough you prefer. I like a loose dough, so I generally push mty fist into the well of flour and fill up the hole. It works perfectly. You will want to experiment.

Work the lard into the flour, add your liquid, and bring together into a dough. Use a butterknife, it does the job better than a fork. I tend to break off pieces of dough and roll them in my hands, but if you want to roll them out, feel free.

Bake at 485 for 13-16 minutes till just done.

Biscuits 2

1 sifter full of self rising flour
5 spoons of lard (a tablespoon, like an actual serving spoon, not the measuring spoon, heaping)
enough liquid (see above)

Prepare as above.

If these instructions are useless to you, try White Lily's website.

Two fun recipes with biscuits:

Butter Roll Pie

1 making of biscuit dough, rolled out into a big rectangle. Spread with softened butter (real butter), sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and sugar. Roll up and cut into rounds like cinnamon rolls. Place cut side up in a baking dish, and pour over a custard mixture (1 qt. milk, 1 c. sugar, and four eggs with a dash of vanilla. This is a loose suggestion as to quantity, you may need to make more custard. It always takes more than you think you'll need.) and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake at 350 till done. 45 minutes or so. Serve chilled.

Biscuit pudding

A mess of biscuits. (I like to use fried biscuits for this. Just panfry the biscuits rather than baking them.) Break into small pieces and soak in the custard mixture above for a few minutes. Pour into a baking dish (a little cinnamon wiouldn't hurt.) and bake at 300 for 45 minutes to an hour till set. Serve with ice cream.

Mater's Restaurant and Catering Jackson, Alabama-A Review

Small towns in south Alabama are not expected to be centers of gastronomic glory past the basic repertoire of meat and three vegetables, nonetheless, it is disappointing to leave a restaurant with grave concern that the kitchen staff would likely screw that up as well. Mater's, for all its pretensions, is simply the most mediocre dining establishment in Jackson.

Perhaps I expect too much, but when I am faced with a menu littered with spelling and grammar errors, misuse of culinary terms (braised in olive oil and steamed in wine, really?), and dish descriptions that make me wonder whether the "chef" has ever tasted piccata before attempting to cook it, I really have to ask if it's worth the 17.99 price tag. For half that I can buy frozen dinners that will at least taste like the dishes I associate with the names "chicken marsala" and "seafood alfredo." t

I must concede that the "italian" food they are serving is an improvement over their hamburgers (which seem beyond the abilities of the "chef") and french fries (soggy and brown). Though the "chef" should be ashamed of himself for leaving his diners with the impression that his food is what any of those dishes are actually supposed to taste like. The service, at least, is slightly better than it used to be.

I wouldn't be so upset if there were not several small changes that would so dramatically improve the food. A little decoration (the tables look like a cafeteria), frozen french fries (hand cut should be better than the ones at Burger King, not vastly inferior), someone who knows what the word "medium" means, a basic italian cookbook, a proof reader, and completely new staff, and Mater's would become the nice establishment it's pretending to be.

Cinnamon Cookies

A perfect recipe for those, like my dear Grandmother, who like "just a little something sweet to have with coffee."


Cinnamon Cookies


1 stick butter, softened 1 cup each white and brown sugar (turbinado or demerara is lovely)
1 tsp. each salt and soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tbs. cinnamon
2 eggs
3 cups flour
4 tbs. water


Cream butter and sugars. Stir in salt, soda, flavor, cinnamon, and eggs. Stir in flour and add as much water as you need to make a workable dough. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 (always preheat) for 9-10 minutes till just brown at the edges. Let cool on the pan.


For a special treat, add a little nutmeg and/or mace, perhaps a half teaspoon all told, and a cup or so of raisins.

Chicken Croquettes

There are some foods which I believe we as a culture do not eat enough of. Croquettes are one of those. Anything breaded and fried is going to be near and dear to a Southerner's heart, and something that is tasty, inexpensive, and easily prepared even more so.

In European cuisine, a croquette is a paste of finely chopped food with some sort of binding agent that has been coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. The typical binding agent is a thick white sauce. These croquettes are more in keeping with those I grew up with, minced whatever held together with egg and breadcrumbs (much like meatloaf actually) and pan fried.

These chicken croquettes are a delicious dainty for lunch, an excellent snack, and just plain good eating. Enjoy.

Begin with a quantity of chicken breast meat and run it through a food processor till very finely minced. Add 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs for every pound of chicken paste. Season to taste. Form into flat patties 1/4 inch thick, dredge in breadcrumbs and pan-fry till brown on both sides.

That's really all there is to it. You can sauce them any way you like, tying it in with the seasoning. Curry powder in the croquettes with a nice makhani gravy is delightful. Italian breadcrumbs with a pomodoro sauce is excellent.

Boudin Rice One Pot Dinner

I love boudin, but boudin is hard to find outside of Louisiana. The following is a recipe inspired by boudin. Normally I hate recipes like this, the Rachael Ray "I'm not a real chef so I cook recipes "inspired" by recipes cooked by real chefs" crap that offends every gastronomic sensibility I have. Nonetheless, this is easy and quite tasty.

1 lb. good smoked sausage, finely chopped. Saute for several minutes, add a cup or so of chopped green onions, add a little salt and the cajun/creole seasoning of your choice. (I'll give mine below.) Let that cook for about ten minutes. Add 2 cups converted rice and 1 quart chicken broth, with a little more salt and seasoning. Let simmer till rice in tender. Add one more pinch of seasoning and serve with chopped parsley sprinkled on top.

My own cajun/creole file mix

1 part red pepper

2 parts black pepper

3 parts paprika (sweet spanish, not smoked or hot)

3 parts granulated garlic (not garlic powder)

1 part each: sage, oregano, thyme

The Atomic Cherry Limeade

This is a charming summer punch for when you need to let loose a little.

The secret to this little marvel is an old southern treat called Cherry Bounce. There are a variety of recipes around, but I've used this one happily for years. Quite good on its own (chilled, definitely chilled), it works magic in this cooling concoction.

Cherry Bounce

1 pound Cherries, washed and stemmed

1/2 lb. sugar (try demerara for a nice molasses twang)

1 fifth of whiskey I recommend a locally made corn whiskey (un-aged preferably), but any mid-grade bourbon will do. Nothing so good it's a sin to alter it, nor so bad that you can't drink it on it's own. Absolutely nothing blended with grain alcohol-straight bourbon or Tennessee whiskey.

Add cherries to a large jar, pour over the sugar, pour in whiskey. Shake a few times a day till the sugar is dissolved. Let sit for not less than four and not more than six weeks. Strain the liquid and bottle. Do not (Do not!) eat the cherries.

For the atomic cherry limeade, you will need water, ice, cherry bounce, and the following mixture.

Lime juice mixture:

Equal parts sugar and lime juice, shaken together and chilled.

Combine:

1 jigger each lime juice mixture and cherry bounce in a glass of ice. Add 2 jiggers water or soda. Garnish appropriately.

The same lime juice mixture may be used in a charming fruity rum drink. Use equal parts of lime juice stuff, good white rum (the stronger the better), orange juice, and pineapple juice. It's quite strong, but a great way to wind down, or up, or both.

Grillades

I offer this recipe in homage to my cousin Jamie (seventh cousin on my Mother's side) who requests it every time we have him over to the house for a meal.

A quantity of boneless pork chops (I usually start with three pounds if it's just Jamie and myself, but you can adjust to your own needs) Now, I prefer pork sirloin, but you can use whatever you like. Whatever you use, beat hell out of them with the edge of a saucer to flatten and tenderize them. Or use a meat mallet, or champagne bottle (not wine, the glass is too thin). Incidentally, this recipe is also quite good for chicken breasts (pounded flat with a cubing mallet or saucer or whatever) or cube steak.

The chops should be cut into serving pieces (I'd cut each chop in half), and dredged in the following mixture: 1 c. flour, 2 tsp. salt, 1 tbs. seasoning mix (see below). Let them rest a few minutes (yes, out on the counter) before pan frying them to a golden brown. You likely will not cook them all the way through, which is fine. Place them into a large, greased, covered casserole dish.

Make gravy. For three pounds, I use a quart of chicken broth. Prepare a darkish roux with 1 stick butter and "enough" flour (take up the slack-the roux should be smooth but not dry). Add the broth gradually, season to taste, and cook till thick. Pour over the meat, cover, and cook in a 350 oven for 90 minutes. Let it sit on the counter for at least ten minutes before serving.

Traditionally grillades are served with grits (see a previous post), but mashed potatoes works well. In fact, you can spread mashed potatoes over the top of this in lieu of a cover.

For a great one dish meal, take a pound or so of potatoes which have been peeled and grated and cooked in broth till tender(drain them after they're cooked), and spoon them over the pork/gravy mixture. No, you may not use frozen hash browns. Kittens die every time you so much as think about it.

Earlier I mentioned my seasoning mixture. I use this in nearly all my cooking, and, as many people ask when I give jars of it as gifts, it is good for vegetables. Note, I don't add salt; I like to control salinity separately from the spiciness of a dish.

1 part red pepper

2 parts herbs (italian seasoning works just fine)

3 parts black pepper (coarse ground)

4 parts granulated garlic (absolutely not garlic powder-it has no taste)

Mix in a jar and enjoy.

As a final note, I'm also quite fond of using chicken for this, and seasoning both the dredging mixture and the gravy with curry powder or paste (I make my own-much better than store bought). A tablespoon of powder in the gravy is about right. Serve with plain rice.