Sausage gravy and biscuits
Last Sunday I hosted brunch for the gang in honor of Larry's 38th birthday. Well, the 20th anniversary of his 38th birthday.
As the centerpiece of the brunch, I made sausage gravy with biscuits. A very nice choice!
2 lb sausage meat (I used 1 lb or sage breakfast sausage and 1 lb sweet Italian sausage)
6 T butter
2 T oil
12 T flour
8 cups liquid (stock + milk)
Salt & pepper to taste
Worcestershire sauce
In a 6-quart pot, I broke up the sausage meat, added some water and brought the pot to a simmer to start cooking the meat. As the water evaporated, I added the butter and oil to help browning , and continued to break up the sausage meat until it was nicely browned.
I added the flour and cooked it for a minute or two, then added the liquid. In this case I used 2 cups chicken stock and 6 cups 2% milk. (My sense is that the 'classic' recipe would use milk entirely, but I had stock on hand and heck, it adds a nice flavor.)
I brought it to a simmer and stirred occasionally until it was thickened, then added salt and pepper to taste. It will need a fair amount of salt, as you've just added eight cups of unsalted liquid. I also add pepper with a heavy hand; I think it's appropriate for this dish. At the end I added about 1 T Worcestershire sauce, which rounds out the savoriness.
Ladle over freshly baked biscuits, which have been split. Consume voraciously, as holding back will be utterly impossible.
For the biscuits I used a recipe I found in a recent Saveur magazine: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Buttermilk-Biscuits. It's first-rate. When the biscuits were about 3/4 the way done, I brushed them with melted butter. Mmmmm. As I don't have a biscuit cutter, my biscuits weren't round, but square. After rolling out the dough into a rough rectangle, I merely cut them with my pastry-board scraper. No scraps, either.
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Sunday, December 20, 2009
Birthday brunch -- Sausage gravy and biscuits
Dave loves to eat, and cook, and feed his family and friends. Thankfully Dave's family and friends like to eat what he cooks.
Dave has achieved the Great American Dream -- suburban banality. He cooks from his modestly appointed kitchen in the leafy suburbs of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, a stone's throw from Philadelphia.
Stop by for dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast.
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