Le Champignon et le Chou: Biscuits and Gravy

Growing up, the only thing my two sisters and I ever wanted to eat for Sunday morning breakfast was biscuits and sausage gravy. When given the option between pancakes or waffles or eggs or biscuits and gravy we always chose,without hesitation, the last. Both the recipes are classic southern dishes from my Dad's mom in the motherland of Kentucky. When Mom breaks out the White Lily flour (a self-rising flour specially imported from Kentucky by my uncle) and Dad breaks out the sausage, our mouths start watering. Even though we've all moved out to college, whenever we're all home, this meal is the first on our lists. In fact, this past Thanksgiving, we asked for this on more than one morning.

This Thursday, with no class until 2pm, I was naturally pulled towards the kitchen to make a breakfast worthy of the luxury of sleeping in. The first thing on my mind? Biscuits and Gravy. To start the gravy, I sliced open two links of Italian sausage and removed the outer skins (a technique I've seen my Dad do in the past). I then sautéed the loose sausage until cooked thoroughly and then set it aside. The gravy is milk based on a classic roux (butter and flour) as a thickening agent. This is cooked until the desired consistency is reached and then the sausage is added back in along with additional seasonings.

The biscuits proved a greater challenge. With no White Lily or self-rising flour of any kind, I had to do some Bing recipe searching. The following recipe I found on allrecipes. com. The resulting biscuits were nowhere near as light and fluffy as my mom's are, having to do with the use of regular all-purpose flour as well as our tempramental oven and probable over-kneading. Still, they were the closest I could get to the perfect sausage gravy vehicle.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening

3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening with fork or pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Pour milk into flour mixture while stirring with a fork. Mix in milk until dough is soft, moist, and pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and toss with flour until no longer sticky. Roll dough out into a 1/2 inch thick sheet. (We don't own a rolling pin, so we used a glass instead).

Cut dough with a floured biscuit or cookie cutter. Press together unused dough and repeat rolling and cutting procedure. Place biscuit on ungreased and bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 10 minutes.