Tremendous Biscuits and Gravy
Prep
15m
Cook
25m
Total
40m
Bigly says
Listen to me. Biscuits and gravy. TREMENDOUS biscuits and gravy. The greatest biscuits and gravy in the history of biscuits and gravy, and I do not say that lightly — I never say anything lightly, I don't have a 'light' setting, the dial goes from confident to TREMENDOUS and back, that's it — but I'm saying it here, on the record, this is the one. This is the breakfast. This is the dish that has made grown men, big tough men, weep in diners across this country and probably others. The geography is fuzzy. I've eaten in a lot of places.
The best biscuit I ever had was in a gas station in Albuquerque. True story. A man named Ramón made it. He didn't speak. He just slid the plate across the counter, nodded once, and went back to staring at a small television. That biscuit changed me. These biscuits are ALMOST as good as Ramón's, which is the highest praise I have ever given a recipe in print. Meanwhile most biscuits in this country are a DISASTER. A total disaster. The biscuits at the chain restaurants — the ones with the orange roof, the ones with the rotating sign — those are hockey pucks. They are FRISBEES. They taste like they were assembled by a robot that was angry at bread. Sad. And then the gravy? Wallpaper paste with pepper flecks. An insult to gravy. Real gravy has SAUSAGE in it. Real gravy has FAT. Real gravy will wake you up.
The secret to the biscuit — and my grandmother taught me this, tough woman, she could break a walnut with a look — the secret is COLD BUTTER and a LIGHT HAND. You barely touch the dough. You fold it, you pat it, you cut it, you walk away. The other so-called experts have you kneading dough like you're getting paid by the squish. WRONG. That's how you make a hockey puck. That's how you make sadness. We're making clouds. We're making the lightest, flakiest, most architecturally impressive biscuits any human being has ever put under a ladle of sausage gravy. It's not even close.
Ingredients
- 2.5 cups, plus more for dustingall-purpose flour
- 1 tbspbaking powder
- 1/2 tspbaking soda
- 1 tspkosher salt
- 1 tbspgranulated sugar
- 8 tbspunsalted butter, very cold, cubed(freeze it for 15 minutes first, this matters)
- 1 cup, plus 2 tbsp for brushingcold buttermilk
- 1 lbbreakfast pork sausage(use the good stuff, sage-forward if you can find it)
- 1/4 cupall-purpose flour (for gravy)
- 3 cups, warmedwhole milk
- to tastekosher salt (for gravy)
- 1 tsp, plus more to tastefreshly cracked black pepper(be generous, gravy without pepper is a tragedy)
Steps
- 1
Heat the oven to 425°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment.
- 2
In a large bowl, whisk together the 2.5 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.
- 3
Add the cold cubed butter. Cut it into the flour with a pastry cutter or your fingertips, working quickly, until the mixture looks like coarse gravel with some pea-sized chunks. The butter should still be cold.
- 4
Pour in the 1 cup cold buttermilk. Stir with a fork just until a shaggy dough forms — do not overmix.
- 5
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat (don't roll) into a 1-inch-thick rectangle. Fold it in thirds like a letter. Pat it out again to 1-inch thick. Fold again. Pat to a final 1-inch thickness. This builds the layers.
- 6
Cut out biscuits with a 2.5-inch round cutter, pressing straight down without twisting. Re-pat the scraps once and cut again. Place biscuits on the sheet pan with sides nearly touching.
- 7
Brush the tops with the remaining 2 tbsp buttermilk. Bake 18-22 minutes, until tall, golden, and set in the middle.
- 8
While biscuits bake, make the gravy. Crumble the sausage into a large dry skillet over medium-high heat. Cook 7-9 minutes, breaking it up, until well browned and rendered.
- 9
Sprinkle the 1/4 cup flour over the sausage and stir constantly for 1 minute to cook out the raw flour taste.
- 10
Slowly pour in the warm milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Bring to a simmer and cook 4-6 minutes, stirring often, until thickened to a pourable gravy consistency.
- 11
Season aggressively with salt and a heavy hand of black pepper. Taste. Add more pepper. Taste again.
- 12
Split warm biscuits open on plates. Ladle gravy over the top. Serve immediately.
One more thing
This is the breakfast you make when you have actual things to accomplish. This is fuel. This is ARCHITECTURE. You eat this and you can move a couch, you can rotate a tire, you can have a difficult conversation, you can do anything because you have biscuits and gravy in you and the universe knows it. The other breakfasts — the smoothies, the 'overnight oats,' the little parfaits in the plastic cups from the gas station — those are PROPS. Those are not breakfast. This is breakfast. It's a beautiful thing.
★ QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ONE? ★
Ask Bigly about Tremendous Biscuits and Gravy.
Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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