Biscuits and Gravy, Chicagoist Style

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Nov 28, 2006 2:45PM

This is not what we would call a vegetarian-friendly meal. Matter-of-fact, this is comfort food at its most basic. Chicagoist woke up Sunday morning with a hankerin' for some of that old-fashioned Southern cooking our mother makes (and a hunk of cheese), namely biscuits and gravy. Lucky for us, in addition to knowing where to find a good meal around town for cheap, we also know a little bit about cooking in the kitchen, which comes in real handy when "cheap" means "broke". Otherwise, that would have been one long trip just for breakfast. To this day, Mom still uses buttermilk in her biscuits, sweet (or whole fat) milk in her gravy, and cooks enough of both to feed an army, of which our siblings seem more than willing to provide in the form of grandchildren.

Our biscuits and gravy recipe has taken on some health-conscious concessions over the years, some of which Mom even agrees with. The only health concern one has to worry about these days is eating too much in one sitting. So grab a pad and paper - or hit print on your browser - and take down this recipe.

The biscuits are the more time-consuming portion of this recipe, and even that won't take more than a half-hour from making the dough to pulling the biscuits out of your oven. To make about a dozen buttermilk biscuits, you'll need the following:

First, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. In a mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add the olive oil, working it into the dry ingredients with a spatula, spoon, or your (presumably clean) hands. Add the buttermilk and thoroughly work it into the mix. Once you have a nice dough in the bowl, transfer it to a floured counter top or cutting board, knead the dough through the flour and roll it out. Using a dough cutter or the floured lip of a mug, shape the dough to the size biscuits you want. Mom rolls her biscuits out by hand, but we're a sucker for nice round shapes. Place the biscuits onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake them for 15-18 minutes in the middle rack of your oven, or until lightly browned.

For the gravy, you'll need:

Brown the sausage in a skillet over high heat. Drain the grease. Add the milk and stir until the mixture begins to simmer. Reduce the heat to medium, then slowly add the flour, stirring the mixture so the flour doesn't cling completely to the sausage. Stir for another 3-5 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste. If your gravy becomes too thick, reduce the heat and add more milk, stirring constantly. Then remove the gravy from the heat and let set for a couple minutes.

This should serve between 4-6 people. You can also eat the biscuits alone, or right out of the oven with butter, jams, jellies, or preservatives. For you folks averse to the swine flesh, or any flesh, just omit the sausage from the gravy recipe. Stand alone, milk gravy is amazing when prepared correctly. It's a quick and hearty breakfast that takes under a half-hour to prepare, and we all can spare thirty minutes for breakfast.