Welcome to the second installment of Cliff Notes, authored by my favourite baker and my favourite Cliff – MY DAD! Dad is the inspiration behind the classics right here on the weblog. You already know him and love him for his Chocolate Chip Cookies, his Buttermilk Pancakes, and he’s additionally baker of Buttermilk Biscuits that disappear so quick on the dinner desk, it’ll make your head spin. Let’s right here how these good little biscuits got here to be from the person, the parable, the legend himself – Clifford Wilson. xo Pleasure
Assured Chef and Her Irresistibles
A Biscuit Yarn
My mom was a superb cook dinner. However she by no means measured something. In reality, we had no measuring cups or spoons, nor did we’ve got a mixer. Mom didn’t even personal a cookbook, and there have been no recipes she had written down. Our first cookbook was Betty Crocker’s Image Prepare dinner Guide that my sister, Dede, had bought. However by then, Mom had lengthy been braising dice steak that fell aside earlier than it hit the plate, and her slow-roasted leg of lamb could possibly be eaten with no enamel. Certainly, Mom had been understanding her manner across the kitchen nigh on 30 years! From her luxurious gravies and sauces to her irresistible muffins and pies, she had them down!
Since early age in Tennessee and Arkansas, cooking for her father, her sickly mom and sisters, my mom used her eyes, arms, and style to be taught the conduct of substances after they’re introduced collectively. She developed a preciseness in textures; how dough felt to the contact, how batter dripped off a spoon, and the way all kinds of meals responded to warmth. Her absolute favourite ingredient was butter. In her opinion, butter made all the pieces style higher. However she knew when to make use of it and when to not, particularly through the Nice Despair and World Struggle II when butter was rationed and different types of fats have been cheaper.
Procter & Gamble had an efficient advertising and marketing marketing campaign for its easy-to-use and versatile Crisco vegetable shortening. Hundreds of thousands of bakers made their muffins, cookies, and pie crusts with this cheap product, even to this present day. And shortening is a fundamental storeroom merchandise in foodservice for deep-frying in addition to for frying meals at house. Apart from utilizing Crisco, my mom used bacon grease left over from breakfast. Rising up, one among my favourite meals was fried hen and biscuits, which we had for supper on Sunday afternoons after church. Mom would scoop shortening and congealed bacon grease right into a forged iron skillet and warmth it up. Then she’d take hen items that had been soaking in an egg and buttermilk tub in a single day within the fridge, and would double-dip them in salted, paprika-laced flour earlier than placing them within the sizzling oil. She’d minimize shortening and bacon grease into flour for her biscuits, too! When it was time to eat, I’d pull aside a sizzling fluffy biscuit, slather on some butter and cargo it up with fig jam comprised of the figs off the tree in our yard. Though I had simply gotten out of church, chowing down 3 or 4 of these mouth-watering biscuits had satisfied me that I had died and gone to heaven.
When Mom was aged, she continued to cook dinner southern-style, with the identical Nice Despair thriftiness; she continued to make use of shortening and bacon grease regardless of various dietary developments. And when it got here to her particular sauces and desserts, BUTTER, the culinary love of her life, at all times took middle stage. After I began making biscuits, I might by no means duplicate hers, as a result of I by no means developed her “really feel” for the substances; I at all times need to measure all the pieces. I created this biscuit recipe, made with all butter, in honor of my mom’s ardour for butter. These flaky dangerous boys sit tall, and are incredible for breakfast, lunch and dinner! They make nice shortbread for dessert. Or add savory candy fillings to the shaggy dough—cheddar, dried figs, darkish chocolate chunks, something that pleases. And the way about this? Whenever you’re making cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner, crumble up these biscuits (as a substitute of utilizing bread crumbs) to combine with the crumbled cornbread. Wow! It takes stuffing to an entire new stage!
BTW: It gained’t harm my emotions in the event you sneak in a little bit bacon grease.
Take pleasure in!
xo Cliff
Discover Dad’s Buttermilk Biscuit recipe right here!
And discover the primary installment of Cliff Notes, on Candy Potato Pie right here!
