It was a dreary, rainy morning today in the Chicago 'burbs. They type of morning that makes it really difficult to leave the warm snuggliness of your bed and even more difficult to lead a productive day when you do. The type of morning where making a sensible, healthy choice for breakfast (brunch, actually, when I'm being honest about how long it actually took me to get going today). So I did what any reasonable, health-conscious grown adult would do: I made biscuits and gravy.
Biscuits and gravy ("B&G" from here on in) are a gift from the heavens. This recipe is actually a gift from my dear Aunt Linda, who got it from her dear southern grandma. Aunt Linda shared her southern breakfast secrets with me the last time she was in town, and I've been itching to practice them since. As if it wasn't bad enough that I made my whole family partake in the caloric smorgasbord, I'm gifting this recipe to you, too. I plan dragging as many people down with me as I can, frankly. Be careful how much of this you eat unless you plan on having the mass to drag down lots of things in the near future, actually.
Anyway, the first step to biscuits and gravy is to actually make the biscuits. Aunt Linda didn't show me how to make them from scratch, so now I'd like to introduce our hero:
Have no fear, Bisquick is here! I made the biscuits according to the package directions; it made 7 biscuits instead of the 9 it claimed it would. Lying Bisquick bastards. Oh, and because I'm a caveman (as I've mentioned), I don't have a biscuit cutter. I do, however, have a drinking glass. Several, actually, and it works just as well as your fancy-pants biscuit cutter. Oh, and if you're too fancy-pants to use Bisquick, feel free to make biscuits from scratch, just don't think you're going to find a recipe for them here. And if you're super fancy and just want to make biscuits out of that exploding canister, feel free. I won't tell on you. The point is, make some damn biscuits.
Now that we've got the B, let's work on the G. Here's the REAL hero of our show:
One pound of regular breakfast sausage! When you go shopping, please have the good sense just to buy regular sausage. Save the hot, sage, and maple sausages for another day. Oh, and Aunt Linda's advice here is to buy the cheapest sausage you can find because that tends to have a higher fat content than the fancy brands. And for this recipe, fat is good. Fat is very, very good. So fry it up!
Just keep flipping it around and chopping it with the spatula while it cooks over medium heat. Wait until the sausage is pretty much all done before you decide if it's rendered enough grease. If it hasn't, don't freak out. Just wait 'til no one's looking, and . . .
Throw in a couple tablespoons of butter. Stir it around until it's all melted, then grab your all-purpose flour.
Throw it in. Now, Aunt Linda didn't measure how much flour she put in, and neither did I, but I would feel safe in saying this is about one sparse cup of flour. Stir it around so everything gets spread around evenly. The flour will absorb the fat and start to form a roux as it cooks. The roux is the base for the gravy, so you want to make sure you take good care of it so it can take good care of you.
See that golden brown goodness bubbling toward the bottom of that photo? That's roux. Most gravy recipes tell you to cook it 'til it's golden brown. Aunt Linda says the trick here is to cook it until it's "almost burnt". That's what her granny said, that's what she does, and you can't beat the results. If you're afraid of going from "almost" to "fully" burnt, cook it until you get that rich, golden-brown color those other recipes are always talking about, then cook it for a full minute or two longer. Trust Aunt Linda. Trust her granny.
Let's turn this roux into gravy, shall we? Take some milk (2% or whole is best, but we'll talk about that in a minute), and pour, baby, pour.
Seriously, let it go. It'll feel like WAY too much milk, but trust me. Trust Linda. Trust Linda's granny. Again, I didn't measure because neither did Linda, and neither did Linda's granny, but I would estimate I added about 4 cups of milk. Now, Linda (and Linda's granny) say that 2% or whole milk is best, but don't fear if you're a caveman like me and only have skim milk. The only difference between them is fat, so you know what I added? Yup, MORE butter. A added a couple more tablespoons with the milk. If the thought of this is simply too sinful to bear,
Now it's time to take your whisk, and - while continuing to cook over medium heat - whisk, baby, whisk. Make sure you scrap all that flavorful goodness off the bottom of the skillet as you go along. The flour will start to soak up the milk pretty quickly to become thick, delicious gravy. Here is a good time to salt and pepper generously. And I mean GENEROUSLY. Undersalted gravy is just about the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Here's a neat trick to see if it's thick enough:
Dip a spoon in the gravy, pull it out, and swipe your finger across it. If it all falls down and you can't see your finger swipe anymore, it's too thin; keep whisking! If it runs just a little, you're in good shape. This was actually a little thicker than I wanted (notice how it didn't run, like, at all), so I just added a little more milk. That's one of the greatest things about gravy: it's almost never too late to fix it if something goes wrong.
After optimum thickness and seasoning level was achieved, it was time to grab a plate, a biscuit, and the biggest ladle I could find.
You can leave the biscuit in tact, split it in half (shown here), or rip it into bits ("chewed") before dousing the whole operation with delicious gravy. Either way, run (do not walk) to the table and get this in your face as quickly as possible before you have a chance to begin to calculate how many calories you're consuming (please don't calculate it. Some things are better left unknown).
Now as this is just about the worst thing a person could eat if they're watching their health, I advise you to exercise restraint with how often you add this to your meal plans. And by restraint, I mean try to keep it at or below twice a day. Hey, those leftovers aren't going to eat themselves, right?
Aunt Linda's Granny's Sausage Gravy
1 lb regular breakfast sausage
2-4 TBL butter as needed
1 sparse cup all-purpose flour
4 cups milk
In a large skillet over medium heat, cook and crumble sausage until done. Add butter if needed to add grease.
Add flour; stir to coat evenly.
Cook, stirring frequently, until roux turns a rich, deep, golden-brown.
Add milk and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk frequently, taking care to scrape the bottom of the skillet, until desired thickness is achieved.
Serve hot over biscuits.
Join a gym.
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