I'm Looking For A Good Southern Biscuits & Gravy Recipe

[Volusianator]

OK, I'm from WI so we don't have good biscuits & gravy around here. My wife has tried a few times to make it, it's not bad, but it's also not southern. I know some of you may not feel it's the greatest, but I fell in love with Bob Evans. Anyway, if you have a good biscuits & gravy recipe, please feel free to post it here! It'd be much appreciated y'all!

[kydsid]

Many people have asked me for my Mom's recipe over the years. I don't call it one though, its all in the technique. Heck my moms recipe is sausage, flour, milk, pepper, and black strap. It really is all about just watching and adding a little here and there.

Best advice is that if from scratch the gravy is a labor of love. Stir, stir, stir and stir again. Once I add the milk and start the flower I don't leave the stove till it's done. Trial and error is how I learned from Mom.

Use good sausage, Jimmy Dean at the least. And fry it with Molases, syrup or something sugary. Gives it that little extra to me at least.

For biscuits I just use a plain baking soda roll recipe I take off the internet when I need to or grands biscuits when in a rush.

I don't know if that helps at all. I have taught it to quite a few cause no one ever leaves leftovers of this at all.

Good luck.

[awsmith4]

That sounds like good gravy


I will have to check what recipes i have when I get home. We used to make big breakfasts all the time but now with the two little ones we never seem to have time.

I also like red-eye gravy over biscuits but have never tried to make it, I've only had it served to me

[Volusianator]

What is "black strap"?

[awsmith4]

Originally Posted by Volusianator

What is "black strap"?

Molases

[SvilleKid]

Originally Posted by awsmith4

Molases

Un-sulphered. First run. Molassas!

There's Molassas, then there's black-strap!

[Volusianator]

I need to move to the South, it's where I belong.

[The Poet]

Originally Posted by awsmith4

I also like red-eye gravy over biscuits but have never tried to make it, I've only had it served to me

When you come right down to it, red-eye gravy is easier to make than most others . . . IF you have access to some country ham. You fry up a fatty slice of that, then add coffee and a little sugar to the resulting grease. Stir over low heat. That's about it.

Now, where the hell you gonna get country ham in Wisconsin, beats me.

[Volusianator]

Thomas, my wife makes several hams that most men would be more than happy to eat. The woman can cook, just the biscuits & gravy thing she's not gotten yet.

[The Poet]

Hey, Wade, don't misunderstand. There's ham and there's ham, and much like sex I've rarely found some I didn't like. But real Southern-style country ham, be it salt or sugar cured, and smoked to the point that you could nail it to the wall and it would still be good to eat a year from now, is a porcine of a different color. Had I access to it here in Joisey, I'd mail you a slice or three . . . it would survive the trip just fine, believe me.

Perhaps if you called out a rebel yell to brothers south of the Mason-Dixon, they could hook you up.

[OLS]

Tot tell the truth, all you need for bisuits and white gravy is to cook up your breakfast sausage , pour off 75-80%
of the grease, add about two tablespoons of flour, stir and scrape getting it hot, KEEP IT MOVING, and get it hotter,
ever hotter without smoke or burn, and then douse it with a cup of milk and stir, stir, stir, and scrape, scrape, scrape,
cooking off some liquid as you go. Remember to stop at least one level (preferably two) of thickness SHORT of where
you intend to eat it, because it WILL get thicker as it cools. Salt and pepper to taste as you reduce the liquid down,
usually heavier on the pepper than the salt.

Biscuits are best left to you, you can buy mix off the shelf, as long as you roll out the resulting dough, fold it and
roll it, fold it and roll it, fold it and roll it, then roll it out to 1/2 inch thick, cut it and bake it on a cookie sheet,
lightly sprayed with some PAM if that. Floured certainly. Also look seriously at the concept of the "Drop biscuit'
which is deadly with gravy, in fact, much better with the sausage gravy than the standard flaky biscuit..

------------

Also, to edit, you can certainly add some garlic powder to taste, some people like Allspice, as stated, some like a little
See-ro blended in there, too. Brown sugar might work. I like more savory than sweet. Once you know the actual
physical constants, you can tinker with the spices. Also for a silkier texture you can substitute about 1/4 corn starch
for some of the flour.

[Volusianator]

Thomas, I have several Redneck (and I say that with a cap R as I have the utmost respect for them and they've given me the damn yankee title) friends that could certainly hook me up.

[chippewastud79]

Paula Deen is a winner in my book, never tried these, but that woman is about as southern for cooking as you can get. Lard, butter, shortening, bacon grease, sugar and lots of love, she cooks with them all.


Looks like you could easily substitute sausage and sausage grease in the gravy recipe

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/p...ipe/index.html

[Smokin Gator]

Originally Posted by OLS

Tot tell the truth, all you need for bisuits and white gravy is to cook up your breakfast sausage , pour off 75-80%
of the grease, add about two tablespoons of flour, stir and scrape getting it hot, KEEP IT MOVING, and get it hotter,
ever hotter without smoke or burn, and then douse it with a cup of milk and stir, stir, stir, and scrape, scrape, scrape,
cooking off some liquid as you go. Remember to stop at least one level (preferably two) of thickness SHORT of where
you intend to eat it, because it WILL get thicker as it cools. Salt and pepper to taste as you reduce the liquid down,
usually heavier on the pepper than the salt.

Biscuits are best left to you, you can buy mix off the shelf, as long as you roll out the resulting dough, fold it and
roll it, fold it and roll it, fold it and roll it, then roll it out to 1/2 inch thick, cut it and bake it on a cookie sheet,
lightly sprayed with some PAM if that. Floured certainly. Also look seriously at the concept of the "Drop biscuit'
which is deadly with gravy, in fact, much better with the sausage gravy than the standard flaky biscuit..

------------

Also, to edit, you can certainly add some garlic powder to taste, some people like Allspice, as stated, some like a little
See-ro blended in there, too. Brown sugar might work. I like more savory than sweet. Once you know the actual
physical constants, you can tinker with the spices. Also for a silkier texture you can substitute about 1/4 corn starch
for some of the flour.

Brad had it dead on until he added that "Edit" part. I also like to crumble some of the cooked sausage up in the gravy.

I use a 1lb chub of Jimmy Dean sausage, either sage or maple, depending on the mood. I fry that on low-med. heat with a splash of water while crumbling it until it is no longer pink and is in small enough pieces adding a splash of water whenever it looks like my grease is evaporating. While the sausage is cooking I add lots of fresh ground pepper, a dash of salt, a generous dash of garlic powder, and ancho chili powder for the maple variety or chipotle chili powder for the sage kind. When the sausage is cooked I add some 1/2 and 1/2 or cream, maybe a cup or two, and let it warm up on low heat while stirring. Once nice and warm, I add a few table spoons of flour and IMMEDIATELY stir it in. At this point everything is done by feel. I continue adding 1/2 and 1/2 and flour in small amounts (1/2 cup-1 cup of 1/2 and 1/2 and tablespoon-pinch of flour) until I'm satisfied with the amount of gravy. Then I re-season to taste and add milk/flour until my spatula can push the gravy to one side of the pan it barely runs freely to refill the spot. The gravy shouldn't be to thin, but not too thick, because it will thicken upon setting and cooling.

This is what my mother requested for Mother's Day and it has swooned many a woman and satisfied many a friend. To kick it up a notch add fresh cut jalepenos while cooking.

As for biscuits, I usually use the Bisquick recipe on the box with the following exceptions. I add garlic powder, and a little extra milk. I also knead the dough about twenty times until silky and no longer sticky. The rest of the recipe from Bisquick works fine for me. In a way I'd rather have the buttery, flaky biscuits, but I don't think this is so much about the biscuits as what they are being smothered with. Just be sure the biscuits are moist and soft, not hard and dry.

I slice the biscuits in half and lay them on a plate open face up and let the gravy pour. A couple of scrambled eggs on the side and a cup of Florida oj not from concentrate and I'm good to go.

[OLS]

You got me, Brent, I went too far. I will add garlic cause I love it and add it to everything.
The other stuff I made up. Note to the OP-inator...This recipe is also useful for, and for me was first
tasted as, a FRIED CHICKEN recipe. When we were kids my mother made it one time, fried up a chicken,
poured off the grease and made what she called milk gravy. That and mashed potatoes was freaking AWESOME.
So we always asked for 'milk gravy', but she rarely ever made it. My old man liked creamed beef on toast
about 5-6 times a year, having loved it in the military. (he grew up poor)

But back to my point...
1.) Biscuits and gravy
2.) Fried Chicken and gravy
3.) Creamed beef on (whatever) I like hash browns, toast gets soggy and makes me gag.
3.) Fried fish and gravy

All the same technique...It's the gratin' on the bottom of the frying pan that makes the
recipe. The debris from whatever you fried makes the meat base, although like Brent
said, RICH people crumble more meat into the gravy after it's cooked for the most part.
We were too poor to use MORE meat in the gravy, lol.

[kydsid]

Originally Posted by Smokin Gator

Brad had it dead on until he added that "Edit" part. I also like to crumble some of the cooked sausage up in the gravy.

He had me until he said "pour off 75% of the grease". I question his southern roots with that statement.



I will agree their is a difference though between Biscuits and Gravy VS Sausage Gravy with Bisuits AND agree that its all about scraping that pan over and over after frying your sausage.

With as cheap as Jimmy Dean can get, less than a dollar for the regular tube if you are using coupons and watching deals I say make the latter.

Oh if we talking being poor. Poor is using the coffee can bacon grease from the stove to make the gravy.

[CigarNut]

Originally Posted by kydsid

...Oh if we talking being poor. Poor is using the coffee can bacon grease from the stove to make the gravy.

Bacon grease makes great gravy! (still need to add the sausage bits if you want perfection )

Well, I am just a southern girl so what do I know!!!!

THE KEY to good pan gravy, any kind, is the PAN!!! You have to use a VERY seasoned cast iron pan.

The rest just happens naturally if you know how to cook southern

[Subvet642]

Maybe I'm lazy, (OK, I'm definitely lazy) but I love KFC's biscuits and I love their gravy. I know it's not the same thing, but this thread got me thinkin' about it. Damn, too bad they don't deliver...