@Beth Gallagher Hubby took over my kitchen after he broke his back and they loaded it up with metal aka spinal fusion. He is a good cook since I taught him how. He makes the best double chocolate cake. He made these ,
Dunno. I'm just thinking of the few times I've made-from-scratch, and I always used a pastry cutter because the fat was a solid. I don't know a lot about the composition of various fats and what makes some set up at room temp. I know that some fats are hydrogenated to solidify them, but others are solid without that process (bacon grease, beef fat, etc.) And I wonder if chicken fat was ever used to make biscuits? I mean, the initial concept was to not waste anything. I we know that pioneers did not have vegetable shortening.
Lard ALWAYS made the best biscuits. Not sure what kind of fat it was, but it was good. But we don't eat pork anymore and not sure I'd trust the lard today.
Yup. There's a chitlin conversation around here somewhere. My dad was from Pennsylvania...he loved him some pon hoss. So do I. My mother would make it every once n a while. As a kid I loved calves liver...I still do....as well the various innards of chickens. Peruvian friends ate chicken feet...I figured it was self-stirring. I grew up eating beef tongue sandwiches. I was once at a Bolivian restaurant and they had tongue on the buffet. The server was surprised that I liked it and would eat it. I guess not many Americans do.
I buy lard from Kroeger. I mostly use it to make refried beans. They just don't seem right when made with oil, even if I toss in a little bacon grease.
Beats me. My mother and grandma always used buttermilk and crisco or lard for biscuits and mixed the dough by hand; I doubt if either of them knew what a "pastry cutter" is. I used to use their method as well because that's how I learned to make biscuits. The 2-ingredient biscuits did have a nice rise and looked pretty, but there was definitely something missing taste-wise. I should have greased the cast-iron pan with about a half cup of lard and put 'em in there to bake. I also recently tried making fried cornbread after watching a youtube video by an Appalachian woman. She used White Lily self-rising cornmeal mix and buttermilk, then fried the batter in a pan like pancakes. They were... meh. Total waste of time and buttermilk. (That was my first time trying a self-rising cornmeal mix; not sure what I'll do with the rest of that 5 lb bag.)
The closest I get to that is making cornbread in a screaming hot 8" cast iron skillet greased with bacon fat. I've tried from-scratch cornbread, but it always comes out bland. I don't know why Jiffy has so much more flavor...probably lots of sugar.
Not really "biscuit related," but I bought a box of Bisquick this week. I remembered an old recipe I have for Easy Cheeseburger Pie or something like that... ground beef, onions, cheese, etc. and it makes its own crust. That's on the menu for dinner today.
"Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie"... https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipe...rger-pie/8c78aa78-c368-40fa-8a88-1654640c7525 I made it for dinner today. It was OK but a little bland; I only had mild cheese and I think using a sharp variety might jazz it up a bit. Now I have plenty of Bisquick left to make biscuits.
Grandmother not only made biscuits several times a week she also made fresh made cornbread several times a week. I liked the corn pan gravy she made using white corn cut from the cob and cooked in that white gravy, it had a very good special taste that I have not tasted for over 60 years. Hard to find a white corn any longer and even the yellow corn is terrible tasting. When I worked for a farmer here where I lived about 30 years ago he had 400 acres in corn and it ran right up to the back of the shop. Lunch time would come around and we would go grab a few ears and boil them, there was just about zero taste.