Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: Dazv on January 14, 2012, 02:00:22 pm
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Hi guys
I have often heard you guys out in the states talk about biscuits and gravy and the way you guys talk about it it sounds great. What is it??? Biscuits and gravy in the UK would taste nasty together so i just really want to find out what it is.
thanks guys
Darren
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Fry up some sausage, add some flour and milk and cook it until it thickens up. Add salt and pepper to taste. (this is just the basics) Put over biscuits. Doesnt get much better!
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Dazv, usually it is a nice flakey buttermilk biscuit (not a UK cookie style biscuit) that is cut in half and a nice artery clogging breakfast sausage gravy poured over it. better (imho) with two eggs over easy on top to get the warm egg yolks mixed in. I do know different areas have different gravies and different biscuits. A friend of mine and I went back to Montana where he is from (we live in western Washington state now). and I ordered a plate of biscuits and gravy and got hamburger gravy(yuk). I complained to my buddy and he just looked at me weird and said he had never had sausage gravy before. Probably my favorite style breakfast. google it and make it sometime. I would love a nice UK breakfast sometime. blood sausage and all. :)
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OK Dazv, Here is how I do it.
You make biscuts w/flour, salt, baking powder, butter and milk. You roll em out and cut them out w/ a glass or something round and bake them. You can also use toast for this part of biscuts and gravy too.
Get you some ground breakfast sausage, pork sausage/ sage and slt and pep will do too. you brown the meat, pour out most of fat but leave at least a couple of tablespoons. Some remove the meat and add it back later, but I just leave it in there. turn the heat way down and sprinkel flour around on the fat and scraping until it is mostly absorbed. Now add about a cup or so of milk and keep stirring w/ the heat on low. make sure you stirr it often or it will start to stick to the bottom. Keep stirring and cooking until it thickens up to gravy. 5-10 minutes Pour on biscuts or toast and eat. I make it out of bacon sometimes, you can also make it out of ham, you can also add coffee to it and make red eye gravy which is darker. This is a white gravy, not a brown gravy and our biscuts are big and fluffy, not flat and hard like biscotti. I add hotsauce on top too.
Good luck and if you want a more detailed receipe, PM me, good luck, dpgratz
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Biscuits and gravy originated as a southern dish, or at least it's always been associated with southern cooking. I think it's one of those foods that originated from necessity, but has moved into the mainstream and is showing up in resturants and homes far outside Dixie.
Part of your confusion may be the whole US vs UK english thing. Those things you call biscuits in the UK are called cookies here. Just to be clear American "biscuits" are more or less unsweetened scones. The gravy is as others describe not the thin, brown, curry flavored stuff that you might think of in the UK.
Now if you want strange you should try grits and gravy.
Ron
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Man that stuff sounds good i can't imagine it looks good but i bet it tastes amazing.
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Biscuits and gravy originated as a southern dish, or at least it's always been associated with southern cooking. I think it's one of those foods that originated from necessity, but has moved into the mainstream and is showing up in resturants and homes far outside Dixie.
Part of your confusion may be the whole US vs UK english thing. Those things you call biscuits in the UK are called cookies here. Just to be clear American "biscuits" are more or less unsweetened scones. The gravy is as others describe not the thin, brown, curry flavored stuff that you might think of in the UK.
Now if you want strange you should try grits and gravy.
Ron
What's grits and gravy???? curry flavored gravy sounds disgusting.
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Dazv, usually it is a nice flakey buttermilk biscuit (not a UK cookie style biscuit) that is cut in half and a nice artery clogging breakfast sausage gravy poured over it. better (imho) with two eggs over easy on top to get the warm egg yolks mixed in. I do know different areas have different gravies and different biscuits. A friend of mine and I went back to Montana where he is from (we live in western Washington state now). and I ordered a plate of biscuits and gravy and got hamburger gravy(yuk). I complained to my buddy and he just looked at me weird and said he had never had sausage gravy before. Probably my favorite style breakfast. google it and make it sometime. I would love a nice UK breakfast sometime. blood sausage and all. :)
You just cant beat a full English breakfast or i think the best is to make a beakfast bap which is everything in the full English beakfast but in a sandwich.
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I had biscuits and gravy for breakfast this morning. MMMMMMMMMM I don't know if you can get Bisquick baking mix over there, but you can make some incredible biscuits from that real easy.
The biscuits are usually buttermilk biscuits, and the gravy is country gravy with or without sausage in it. You can make it as easy or complicated as you want.
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(http://thepauperedchef.com/images/2010/05/500/biscuits-and-gravy-11.jpg)
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ummmm it dosen't look to tasty but i bet it is great i have to give it a go.
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I worked with a woman from Liverpool and she almost lost it when I was waxing poetic about "biscuits and gravy". When I finally was able to show her what it was she announced it should be called "Scones and Sausage Sauce".
She's quite right about the last part, technically it is gravy if it contains only the drippings of the cooked meat. When cream/milk is added it then becomes a sauce.
I can imagine some poor Brit thinking we pour meat drippings on chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.
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Biscuits and gravy is one of my favorites! I like grits too wish is essentially corn meal mush (not quite) But if'n y'all wann try somethin different try choclate gravy made with nestle quick.
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Dazv,
You better tell them what all is a 'Full English Breakfast' :laugh: :laugh:
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ummmm it dosen't look to tasty but i bet it is great i have to give it a go.
WHAT? That makes me hungry!! We are blessed to live here I guess!
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I have to admit the image doesn't look that appetizing. Give it a try Dazv you wont be disappointed.
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Come to the US, have a few+ stiff drinks, sleep where you can, get up and hit the local diner for some B&G. Just kidding, sleep here and homemade is always better. Come on DANG IT...it's 2012 and you all ain't got B&G in the UK! >:D Sorry, I've just returned from a family get to gether, the PBRs may be talkin... :-* ??? :-[ ::)
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I guess those yankee folks mix butter in their biscuit mix. Down here in the South you use Criscoe or Bear Lard.
Grits is Corn soaked in water ( hominy) till they puff up, then dried and ground real real fine. then boiled till firm and a little hot bacon grease poured on top.
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o come one, are you trying to make me hungry ::)
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I stopped at a place in Cary NC called biscuitville and had some biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs and bacon on the side. Great stuff, wish it wasnt so far away.
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Any Florida guys here remember the restruant in Gainesville called" Skeeter's Big Biscuit"? Biscuit and gravy with one big biscuit that covered the whole plate.
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Also my favoret here's what I do after makeing a big pan. I eat it the usell way. But the seconds O like to add cheese to mine. I'll eat warm ups all week long. I like to have a little SWEET BABY RAY BQ on the side to add a little to each bite.
My granddad use to make corn meal biskets with his. I do this also some times but perfer butter milk biskets best.
Beleive it or not wallmart has pepper or sausage grave in packs. I just add my own fried sausage. I loive the hot sausage you can also get from wallmart. It's not bad.
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Buttermilk biscuits,hot pork sausage gravy(Lots of red pepper in it) eggs over easy and steaming hot coffee is food of the gods. You don't like that,you best check your man card. ' Frank
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Wow guys it's hard to believe that a humble plate of biscuits and grave with eggs on top and coffee and toast and jelly on the side annnnnn droolllllll mmmm oh yeah is getting so much press. Ron
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Cathead biscuits and sausage gravy! Yum!!! ;)
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with one side of my family from arkansas(same family farm still owned by the orrs since mid 1800's),
biscuits and gravy was sunday breakfast almost always.
of course there was red eye gravy when ham was served. and chocolate gravy for the kids on special occasions(and sometimes "just cuz").
for my arkansas family, the meat was cooked previous and the "drippings" was used for the gravy.
the meat was removed from the cast iron skillet and served separate.
my grandmother always voiced her belief that meat in the gravy was a "yankee" thing and would never eat it served that way in a restaurant-
the worst possible condemnation of ideas, words or behavior coming from my grandmother,
who was a well educated and very proper southern woman(she was always called with respect "Miss Ellen"),
was when it was referred to as "yankee"
ok you guys, this thread forced me to make b and g for breakfast(yes, one sunny side up egg on top)
instead of my usual hot cereal(better for the body. b and g-now thats for the soul)
(sorry no offense meant-i only mention the yankee thing as i simply cant eat or talk about b and g without thinking about my grandmother and her quiet rantings...she was born in 1888 and tho she had no first hand experience with the civil war it was most assuredly a powerful part of her upbringing in the south in those times)
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man you guys really like it, i cant wait to try it. I sounds so good.
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Fried chicken with milk gravy ain't too shabby either! ;D
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and a skillet full of cornbread is a meal! just add a glass of buttermilk to crumble it in
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One night at the classic I'll make cube steak and onion gravy with mashed taters and bixcuits. Damn I'm getting hungry I'm gonna go home and practice. By the way white gravy didn't fly at my house growing up nothing against it I love it myself but Ma said white grave was for yankees and that gravy had to be brown hot and plenty of it. Ron
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How do all you non-Americans view this thread on such a humble breakfast dish? I know that even as an American I am still surprised at the passion this subject raises in people. I've eaten this all over America, some was sublime (little restaurant in Yoder Kansas, $1.45 - 6 whole biscuits + another soup bowl of extra sausage gravy), some was downright bad. Everyone has an opinion, a secret recipe, and a story about how it means family to them. No one yet has been neutral.
It's only flour, sausage drippings, a little leavening, and milk or cream with a bit of simple spices. But it crosses socio-economic boundaries faster than the common cold! It's something transcendant, almost overwhelming in that no matter how well I may have just been fed, I can always find the room for just one biscuit and summa dat gravy wif it, pass the black pepper please.
And that is the hats-off-at-the-door-and-boots-wiped-clean, Bible-sworn word of a Yankee, Miss Ellen.
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And that is the hats-off-at-the-door-and-boots-wiped-clean, Bible-sworn word of a Yankee, Miss Ellen.
my grandmother woulda liked you :)
she would assuredly always make an off handed comment to any fella who would walk into the house with his hat on.
as fer the bible thumping-she would not step foot into any eating establishment that served alcohol in any form, no matter how fine.
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I WASN'T. GOING TO COMMENT. BUT. I will have to side with Sadiejane my dad is from Cripple Creek Va that is just what we do, the butter milk. and. Corn bread was the trigger for me, but a quick cup of black coffee a cold biscut and a hunk of crispy side pork is one of my favorite snacks and good lord don't forget the. Chow-chow!! Some time I'm sorry I live in New York Jeff W
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sadiejane you have to meet my wife and her buttermilk cocktail. And, like you, I can make a meal off buttered cornbread and throw in some collards with a little pork. :P
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JW, I've eaten those b&g at Yoder many a time. Outstanding !!! Josh
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Growing up, my mom used to get us up for school in the mornings with, "hot biscuits are ready!". We always had eggs either fried or scrambled, and usually sausage. Sometimes had gravy, and often sorgum molasses! I still cook a good southern breakfast myself.
Recently had some squirrel that I cooked slowly in gravy...good stuff! ;)
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I was raised believing white gravy was a northern thing and was to be strictly avoided. Pork
was the southern meat because it could be cured and stored even in our mild weather. And
we never used the word Yankee unless it was preceeded
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by an expletive.
Lane
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I grew up a Yankee in Iowa, but my grandparents were from Florida so I got the best of both food worlds. My wife has perfected the art of making tall flaky biscuits and the gravy with wild pork sausage is pretty darn good. I don't get it very often, probably more healthy that way. But, my favorite breakfast is fried mush...makes my mouth water thinking about it.
George
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And
we never used the word Yankee unless it was preceeded
by an expletive.
Lane
hey, what does that mean >:(
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OH SNAP!!!!!!!!!! I for got I have a jar of sorghum for my biscuts!!!!!!!!! JeffW
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Well, I'm sorry in advance, but I have to hijack. My wife has a variation on biscuits we sometimes have at dinnertime as well as at breakfast. Tonight we had venison chili and she made her signature cheese biscuits. Same recipe with cheese rolled up inside. Yum yum!
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7034/6717446411_767fcaf140_z.jpg)
I can't remember if she made these when Gus was here. Usually she does when we have biscuits and gravy in the morning as well.
George
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:o
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Looks pretty good to me I'd eat supper with you any time. Where do you live?
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Saint Paul, Texas, northeast of Dallas in the burbs.
George
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I'll throw in another biscuit variation- tomato biscuits,, which I had never had 'til a buddy cooked some one day
I went up there to hunt. instead of using milk in the mix you substitute tomato juice. biscuits come out pink and
yummy!
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George, those were some good lookin biscuits, we also had venison chili tonight. Turned out perty good.
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Hamburger , tomato, sausage, chocolate, venison, beef, pork any way you look at gravy goes well with just about everything!
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I love chili. There are soooo many variations, chili with or without beans, white chili, I've even had it with pasta. Fact of the matter, I would not need the chili if George's wife held out a plate of those cheese biscuits. Those are the tears of angels fresh from the oven!
This is fast becoming my alltime favorite threads on here!
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Mullet I remember Skeeters Big biscuits! Great place! Is it still there? I hope so! The way I make my biscuits and gravy, I usually just use toast as it is quicker, and I make lousy biscuits, but I make fantastic gravy for it! At least I think so, and the guys at the stations I worked at liked it! I use pork sausage, or if I don't have any, I just use ground pork, or lean hamburger, and at salt and pepper, and sage, and little cayenne pepper, and Cajun seasoning, and then mix it all together well. Then I dice up a sweet onion, and some garlic cloves, and saute' them, till they are starting to just about glaze, and then dump in the sausage, or homemade sausage, and stir it all around in the onions and diced garlic, and then when the sausage is cooked, I pour in a cup or more of half and half, depending on how much I am cooking, and stir it all together, and then I take a coffee cup, and put in about a table spoon of flour, or corn starch, and pour in half and half, and stir it up, and when the half and half, and sausage is bubbling, I pour in the cup of flour and cream mixture and it thickens up the gravy, and I sprinkle some granulated garlic powder, and some Cajun seasoning in, to taste, and depending on who I am making it for, sometimes I will put some crushed pepper flakes in also. I then pour it over a couple of fried eggs, sitting on toast, in a large plate with somewhat of a raised edge, so the gravy doesn't run off, but the flour and cream usually thickens it up enough that it doesn't run much, you can regulate the thickness of the gravy, by putting in less flour and milk, cream, water, whatever you choose to use. You can season it with salt and pepper to taste. Since this dish is not the healthiest, I try to cook with coconut oil when I can, as it is the hands down healthiest cooking oil there is. Not Palm oil, it is another oil all together and is to be avoided at all costs! It comes from the Betel palm nut, which is a known carcinogen! The Betel palm is better known here as the Aricca palm. Anyway use whatever oil you like. I stay away from soy, corn, and Canola oil, which actually comes from the Rape seed, but Canola sounds better. Anyway, my reason for avoiding those oils, is that 96 per cent of all soybeans grown in the US is genetically modified! No matter what bull Monsanto says, it is not healthy, all independent testing has proved it unsafe time and again. Anyway, the GMO soy is called roundup ready, meaning it can be sprayed with roundup and survive. But the round up kills the soil, and is absorbed into the plant, and soybean. Approximately the same percentage of corn, and canola (rape seed) is also GMO product also. But anywho whatever you choose, that is my recipe for sausage and gravy. The only home made English breakfast I had was in Hindon, out side of London, and it was stewed tomatoes, beans (pork n beans style) and fried eggs. It was very good! ;) I wish I could afford to go back. If the American biscuit is a bit confusing, just use toast, it is what I use most of the time any way. We had it in the Army, but called it SOS. ( #hit on a shingle! ):P :P Still it was one of the more tasty treats the slopped on your plate. There is also a "Red Eye" gravy over here, and it is basically made from the pan scrapings from cooking slabs of ham. Enjoy!
Wayne
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Sadie Jane you definitely don't want to know about Mullet's Wife Cathy's buttermilk cocktail! :o :P :P I lose my appetite every time I think about it. At first I thought he was kidding! It's not something you want to hear about after a night of imbibing so to speak! :P :P
But on a more tasty thread, back to the biscuits, when I was a kid, for breakfast my Mother would sometimes fix chipped beef with creamy white gravy on toast. Oh, man was that good! Sometimes for supper, if we had been out, or it was late, instead of cooking a big meal for supper, she would cook some smoked sausage, and make what my Parents both called flour bread, essentially a big biscuit, and we would pour some cane, or sometimes if we splurged at the super market, Maple syrup, on the plate, and then forked a section of sausage, and rubbed it in the syrup, and tore off a hunk of flour bread, and chowed down. Sometimes she would make biscuits and gravy. When we went hunting together, My Brother and my self would get some squirrels, and she would cook them in a gravy, with onions, and potatoes, or sometimes she would cook them like chicken and dumplings, always had the biscuits there! ;) Fond memories! :)
Wayne
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Dazv,
Biscuits and gravy would be worth the trip across the pond, alone. haha. You are definitely missing out if you haven't had it before.
~Barry
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I suppose born and raised in Michigan, you might call me a yankee. But my family was very old fashioned and didn't worry so much about heart stopping food. As a result, I've become quite a cook. Every year at Selfbow camp and other camping events througout the year, I whip up a batch of them biscuits & gravy. Here's a very simple method of how I do it: I have a set of fire irons. More difficult would be to substitute the ready mades for a tube of Pop-N-Fresh Grands Flakey Buttermilk Biscuits and bake in a dutch oven, over the fire.
1 - Tube ground sausage (mild)
1 - Tube ground sausage (spicy)
1 - Quart Heavy whipping cream
1 - Package ready made dinner rolls from the bakery section
1/4 - Cup (give or take) Hungry Jack "Just Add Water" Buttermilk Pancake Mix
Hanging over the fire in a cast-iron pot goes the sausage. Cook it until done. DO NOT DRAIN THE GREASE! Add the entire quart of heavy whipping cream. Cover and reheat sausage & gravy mixture over the fire. Allow to thicken. If thickening help is needed, add a bit of Hungry Jack "Just add water" Buttermilk pancake mix. The mix adds a subtle but very nice flavor the the gravy. Spoon over split rolls/biscuits and serve. If you see me at the Classic or at the Primitive Rendezvous in Marshall, MI stop by for a taste.
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Sounds Tasty, but, also sounds like a Yankee version. ::) ;) But I would like to taste it at the Classic. ;D
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Something about that white cream or milk gravy. My mother could screw up a pan of warm water, but she did ok with side pork (this is what you salt/sugar cure and smoke to make bacon), mashed taters, and the cream cravy with a good touch of black pepper. Little did I know this was Southern White Trash Cooking considering I grew up jumping distance from the Canadian Border in Nort' Dakota.
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Dasv, I think one thing the southern US has in common with the UK is a tradition of using ALL of the animal. One of my students brought me a gift from his family's hog butchering last week - a pan of "scrapple". Basically, all of the leftover bits of meat and organs such as kidneys, spleen, etc. are cooked with some cornmeal into a thick porridge and poured into loaf pans to cool. The product is sliced and fried. I likes mine with grape jelly or maple syrup ;) Had blood pudding (sanguanicchio) as a kid from my Italian grandpa's hog butchering.
Hope you get an authentic B&G experience someday.
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Hate to argue with you Postman, but scrapple is considered 'Pennsylvania Dutch' not southern!
Still good though. I was raised eating it for breakfast.
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You are correct Bevan. But it probably tastes better with Southern Hogs...... ::) ;D ;D I love head cheese. Just don't care for all the chemicals the manufacturers put in it. Scrapple I am not sure I have had, but it sounds pretty much like head cheese but with cornmeal instead of aspic. When I was a kid, I thought it was neat, to eat a head cheese sandwhich, and as I was putting a slice on the bread , there was an eyelid, complete with eyelashes! :o :P Oh well, it went down without a hitch. ;)
Wayne
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this sounds great.
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You are right Bevan - first had it in Shippensburg PA, and I forgot down here in VA they also call it "ponhoss". Both terms used here because most of the Shenandoah valley "dutch" came down from the Cumberland valley.
They like it when I point out they are also "Come - here Yankees" ;D
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Been to Shippensburg, Pa but never tried what you were describing Postman. My buddy played football there so we never spent too much time, most of it was on campus anyway. Sounds interesting haha.
~Barry