Biscuits and Bloodies

Breakfast for dinner. Seriously, who doesn't love the occasional dinner of breakfast foods? Ann apparently loves breakfast for dinner so much that she invited Dyce and Rob over for biscuits with gravy and Bloody Marys for Saturday night dinner. I'm happy to cook whatever, so why not biscuits and gravy?

Split Biscuit Topped with Two Poached Eggs and Sausage Gravy

Biscuits are not something I make all the time, but are something I learned to make as a child by watching my mother, aunts, and grandmother make them often. It's a skill that takes practice because the dough is best made by feel; a dough that is rather wetter than drier gives the best results. After rubbing in the butter into the dry ingredients, I add buttermilk until I get a very wet dough that I can gently bring together without kneading. Kneading will develop the gluten and result in a less tender biscuit.

Cold Butter Cubes in with Flour, Salt, and Baking Powder

Lightly Rolled Out, Ready to Cut

Ready to Refrigerate

Out of the Hot 425F Oven

In making biscuits, you get more what we chefs call ovenspring (rise), if the dough is cold. The longer that the biscuit takes to reach temperature in the oven, the longer the steam from the butter and buttermilk and the CO2 from the baking powder will have to push the dough upwards. In short, if you can refrigerate your biscuits before baking them, you'll get higher and lighter biscuits. It's not necessary, of course, and nobody in my family did, but I'm the only pro chef in the family, and more to the point, for entertaining like Ann and I were doing, I'd rather have everything done in advance leaving more time for our guests.

For our breakfast masquerading as dinner, I ended up splitting the biscuits, one per person, topping each half with a poached-to-order egg and draping the whole in a blanket of sausage gravy. What makes for sexier meal than cutting into a just-so poached egg and have the yolk ooze all over the dish?

Bloody Mary
Pickles, Lime, Olives, and Spicy Chicharrones for Garnish 

Local Horseradish Vodka

Friday after returning from the grocery store, I put together some homemade Bloody Mary mix to mix with Kachka Horseradish vodka, a local vodka made for one of our favorite Portland restaurants and available at our local liquor store. I have to say that this batch of Bloody mix was not my best effort (I was playing around in the kitchen) and I promise to do better next time.

Start of the Gravy: Ground Pork, Herbs, and Spices

Gravy After Thickening

Making southern country-style sausage gravy is pretty much a snap, a simple béchamel sauce with sausage. I start with browning ground pork to which I add salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, lots of garlic and sage, thyme, and a hint of rosemary. When the meat is cooked, I sprinkle over some flour and let it cook for a couple minutes. Finally I add milk, or in this case, half and half, and let it thicken. If it gets too thick, I thin with water. Just before serving, I taste and re-season. I often cannot get enough sage in my gravy.

Never fear about what to do with leftover biscuits. They're extremely useful to have on hand. For the four of us, I made a dozen biscuits, knowing that we'd probably only eat four of them. I made a enough gravy for a dozen biscuits as well. We sent home with Dyce and Rob all but two biscuits, which we set aside for dinner the following night. For that dinner, I split the two remaining biscuits, topped them with solidified cold gravy, and put them under the broiler. Once they were good and brown, I topped them with scrambled eggs and a tomato-pimentón sauce, for a very quick dinner of leftovers.

Leftovers: Broiled Biscuits and Gravy
Topped with Scrambled Eggs and Tomato-Pimentón Sauce

Wings and Rings

Ann wanted to eat "bad" so Monday night and so I rummaged around in my brain and found some good bar food to make for her: wings and onion rings.

Chipotle Wings

The wings are oven-roasted at 450F with the fan on, turned every 10 minutes, for a half an hour until the wings are super crispy. Then toss them in a sauce of chipotle salsa, agave nectar, and rice vinegar; sweet, tangy, smoky, and spicy.

Onion Rings

These onion rings are a direct result of eating the crappy rings at MELT Gourmet Cheeseburgers a few weeks ago. When I want an onion ring, I want an onion ring, not some overfried reconstituted onion paste in dubious batter. I want a light tempura-style ring made from real onions, the way onion rings are supposed to be made.

To make a great onion ring, you need large yellow onions, and definitely not the supersweet kind. Slice the onions into half-inch slabs and separate the slabs into rings. Place the rings in buttermilk to wet them and shake off the excess. Toss them in seasoned flour. Then into fairly thin beer batter (beer, flour, salt, touch of baking powder). Shake off the excess and into the fryer.