Cooking For Engineers

[southernlass]

For Kristi:
thanks so much for the recipe link! these are perfect and tasted so much like my gran's!
For kenw:
here is my other gran's recipe for tomato gravy (a staple in our bama kitchens with biscuits, over vegetables, and even potatoes):

2 tablespoons bacon drippings or veg. oil
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
15 oz. can tomatoes
1/2 cup evaporated milk
Heat up big skillet (cast iron works best). Add the fat and heat on medium. Stir in the flour with a fork until smooth. Let the fat simmer for a minute to brown the flour just a little bit. Add the sugar, salt and pepper. Add the milk and stir until it bubbles and thickens. Add the tomatoes. Mash the tomatoes with fork to make them sort of chunky. The lumpy tomatoes give it the famous texture. Stir it all up and let it boil again. If you put up your own tomatoes, you can double or triple the recipe for each quart of tomatoes you use. This recipe makes about 2-1/2 cups of gravy.
p.s. I've just compiled a cookbook with tons of my grandmother's recipes along with some delicious comfort food favorites - write to me at shamarketingonline@gmail.com if you want info about the recipes/book!

[Guest]

My Grandmother, when she was alive, used to make biscuits using no shortening. She was the "talk of the town" as all else used shortening. She had a small farm and always used cream, probably the heaviest and richest cream, instead of shortening. After she passed away us kids suffered through many experiences of little hard rocks as my father tried to replicate her biscuits.

Does anyone have a recipe for bisuits using cream rather than shortneing?

[Dilbert]

here's a bunch of links I found - some use liquid cream, some it is whipped

never tried, it - sounds fascinating!

http://www.bettycrocker.com/Recipes/Recipe.aspx?recipeId=8111&WT.mc_id=paid_search_phase2_08&WT.srch=1&esrc=336
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,whipping_cream_biscuits,FF.html
http://www.carolewalter.com/sweet_cream_biscuit.htm
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/cream-biscuits-recipe/index.html
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/breakfast-recipes/sweet-cream-biscuits/article.html
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Whipped-Cream-Biscuits/Detail.aspx

[smithchx@whidbey.com]

Thanks for the assistance. Never thought to try to "Google" for a recipe. After reading the recipes, and not remembering any sugar and not having any self raising flour in the house, I made the Easy Cream Biscuits from the Betty Crocker website for dinner tonight. They were absolutely super and just what I remembered.

[Dilbert]

good feedback - I looked in some of my old (inherited) cookbooks but there is no "heavy cream" recipe -

I'm going to give these a try as well!

[guesttim]

I am sursprised that measurements are in "cups" and "tablespoones" etc. These are not precise measurments. Real engineers would use weights such as ounces or grammes. I was thrilled to find your website, but disappointed with the imprecision of your quantities.

[Dilbert]

>>These are not precise measurments.

sez who? the measurements are quite well defined.
Americans also do not use stones for body mass <g>

if you need some help with the conversions, just holler.

[Guest]

These traditional biscuits sound great, but the absolute easiest biscuits I know of are those I make for breakfast with sausage gravy.

11 Minute Biscuits

Heat oven to 450˚

2 C. self-rising flour
¼ C. mayonnaise
1 C. milk
1 t. sugar

Combine lightly, spoon into (12) greased muffin tins, bake 10 minutes, until lightly browned.

I am pretty sure these are even faster than using a tube of store-bought. They are tall, and a little crumbly, like cake.

[Guest]

I am so sorry that the measurement did not display correctly. I think I have fixed it below.

These traditional biscuits sound great, but the absolute easiest biscuits I know of are those I make for breakfast with sausage gravy.

11 Minute Biscuits

Heat oven to 450˚

2 C. self-rising flour
1/4 C. mayonnaise
1 C. milk
1 t. sugar

Combine lightly, spoon into (12) greased muffin tins, bake 10 minutes, until lightly browned.

I am pretty sure these are even faster than using a tube of store-bought. They are tall, and a little crumbly, like cake.

[Guest]

What you've posted here is a recipe for basic plain scones.

Scones do NOT always have fruit in them as some of the US readers insist on saying! Traditional scones which are made in NZ, Australia & the UK are made without fruit, and they are normally served spread with butter.

If you add sugar instead of salt you can put jam and/or cream on top.

If you like savoury things you can put in salt and/ or cheese, onion and whatever else you like in them and have them as a savoury scone.

[sandrasue]

OMG! these biscuits took me back to my childhood growing up in small town called tuggamee iowa (go warthogs!)...my mom use to get up early every tuesday and and make me hot biscuits on the rock outside the outhouse....thanks so much for the great recipe you are a angel!

[1000101]

Biscuits made with all shortening, southern style, will be more tender and less layered (think KFC biscuits, but obviously much better). Mixing the two types of fat is a great way to go. Try using the recipe above, substituting shortening for one or two of the butter tablespoons. Work the shortening into the dry ingredients before you cut the butter in. You'll get a biscuit with lots of layers and a very tender melt in your mouth texture. Best of both worlds in my opinion.

In terms of getting the layers maxed out, I wouldn't work the dough completely in the bowl. Just stir it in the bowl until the milk has been absorbed but the dough is still chunky. Dump it out on the counter (throw some flour down first). Press the lumps together, pat it out until it's about an inch thick. Fold it in half, press it out again, fold it in half again, etc. Only do this a few times. I'm not talking about actually kneading the dough here, which would mess up the final texture. But if you finish incorporating the dough via this folding process (rather than stirring in a bowl) your little chunks of butter will get squished out into thin butter layers, which is exactly what you want.

Someone above asked about spacing on the cookie sheet. Farther apart = darker, crispier, crunchier biscuits ; closer together = lighter, softer biscuits.

Finally I'd up the salt on the recipe above to 1/2 tsp.

[1000101]

The recipe says roll them out to 1/4 inch. That's fine for shorter, crispier biscuits, but you can also go with 1/2-3/4 inch for taller, slightly softer biscuits.

Now you know.

[Guest]

Thankyou so much! I have been looking for a 'biscuit' recipe since I visited America 3 years ago. I worked on a summer camp and had the most amazing southern chef..these turned out exactly the same..what memories!
On cook out nights we rolled cheesey biscuit dough into balls ~2cms across and dropped them into tomato soup that we boiled in the giant cans over a fire...made the best dumplings you should try it

[Guest]

Biscuits, cookies, scones...who cares? It all depends on how you are going to use the final product. Whenever I get concerned about what to call something, I just call it "Fred". By the way, the Fred recipe is great!