Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits with Sausage Gravy:
What it took for 4 servings:
for the biscuits:
* 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
* 1/8 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 Tbs. baking powder
* 1/2 tsp coarse salt
* 3 Tbs. cold butter (unsalted)
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 1 scallion, finely chopped (save whites for the gravy)
* 2 Tbs. freshly chopped parsley
for the sausage gravy:
* the remaining scallion whites, finely chopped
* 1 pound breakfast pork sausage
* 4 Tbs. butter
* 4 Tbs. flour
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 1 cup milk (I used reduced fat. And actually, to cut calories, you could just use a full 2 cups of this in place of the cream.)
* 1 pinch cayenne pepper
* 1 pinch coarse salt
* 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
Preheat oven to 450.
Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
Cut the butter into small chunks and crumble it into the flour until it’s . . . crumbly.
Add the buttermilk, scallions and parsley. Stir until JUST combined. Don’t overdo it. It should be on the wet side.
Plop it out onto a floured work surface. Gently pat the mix until it’s about 1/2 inch thick. Fold it over 4 or 5 times and pat it down until it’s about an inch thick. Don’t roll it out or do too much. The key is just baaaarely working it.
Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into 4 or 5 circles.
Place them on a (very lightly greased) baking sheet. Now, I read that if you put the biscuits right next to each other, they’ll rise more. If you space them out about an inch apart, they won’t rise as high, but you’ll get a nice crusty exterior all over. We didn’t have them touching, and I liked the way they turned out.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, checking to see when they’re golden brown.
In the meantime, make your gravy.
Preheat a large skillet to medium-high. Add the scallion whites (and a tiny drop of oil) and sauté them for about a minute. Add the pork sausage and break up with a wooden spoon, browning all over for about 8 minutes. Taste it to make sure the pig did it right. Oh, oh it did.
While the sausage is browning, melt the butter in a medium sauce pan. Once melted and the foaming has subsided, add the flour. Whisk until it becomes a nice golden paste, about a minute. Add the cream, milk, cayenne, salt and the tsp of pepper. Whisk whisk whisk until niiiiice and thick and creamy and you begin to sob.
Pour the sausage into the cream sauce, little by little. If you don’t want to put the entire pound in, that’s fine. Do what you like! Mix until it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in your lifetime.
Serve sliced biscuits with a few good spoonfuls of the gravy, and garnish with parsley!
