Page 66 - South Mississippi Living - May, 2019

techniques
The Pursuit
OF THE PERFECT BISCUIT story and photo courtesy of Jeff Clark
We spend a lot of time writing about things such as gumbo and the merits of potato salad or not to potato salad – I’m in the group of “no potato salad with gumbo,” or actually, no potato salad ever, for that matter. But it’s because I don’t eat mayo. It’s strictly business and it has nothing to do with potato salad. My good friend Tom Holzhauser loves to give me grief about potato salad and gumbo.
But why aren’t we talking and writing more about biscuits? That’s the real question. And no, this isn’t about who has the best biscuits, because that answer is Popeye’s, although the Mockingbird Café in Bay St. Louis and Greenhouse on Porter
in Ocean Springs
make a great
biscuit, and I hear
good things about
the ones at Fill-
Up With Billups
and hope I can try
them soon.
you stir your dough too much, your biscuits will not be tender. Making the perfect biscuit is not easy.
My grandmother made biscuits every Saturday. I wish I had paid more attention to her techniques, but I know she cooked them in a cast iron
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour 1/2 stick cold butter
1 cup cold buttermilk
1/2 cup warm milk
2 tbsp veg oil
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Put oil in bottom of large cast
iron skillet and place in oven
for 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl, mix flour
and butter together with a fork until texture becomes slightly granular. Make a well in bowl and add buttermilk.
- Stir with spatula about
10 times. Place dough on parchment paper covered in flour. Roll dough lightly and then fold. Repeat two more times.
- Cut biscuits. I use an cleaned empty tomato sauce can. It makes the perfect size biscuits.
- Add biscuits to cast iron skillet and brush with warm milk – this will help to brown the tops.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes.
- Pull biscuits from oven and
enjoy!
Biscuits have
very simple
ingredients – self-
rising flour (needs
to be White Lily
brand, of course),
some buttermilk
and some fat – I
prefer butter to
margarine or
shortening. That
is it. Past that,
some recipes will call for a teaspoon of sugar or pinch of baking powder and not much more. But how much you use is a different story. You also have to fold your dough a few times to get the light and airy layers and if
skillet and she cut them with the top of a small Mason jelly jar. But past that, it’s just a guessing game.
I have been spending time with my son, Charlie, making biscuits on Saturday mornings. He loves to help. I’ve researched several recipes
and I finally found one from Southern Living that is pretty close to my Maw Maw’s biscuits.
But I’m still not
there yet. So, we keep trying in hopes of making the perfect biscuit. My wife, Dayna, said the biscuits I made for the Pass Parade “tasted like Popeye’s.” That’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.
66 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • May 2019
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Charlie and Jeff have made biscuit making part of their Saturday tradition!
Ultimate
But why aren’t we talking and writing more about biscuits?