A Bread A Day

Week Thirty-One: Breads With… Foods

I never liked tomatoes while growing up.  I’m not sure what it was about them, but I just didn’t like them.  My mother never really cooked with them, aside from their inclusion in her beloved chili recipe; but that was in paste form, and you couldn’t exactly taste them, so it was okay.  Thinking back, it’s perhaps obvious why I never liked them, considering where I was most often exposed to them: squished between meat and bun on fast food sandwiches.

It feels like a public airing of dirty family laundry to admit it.  Yes, as a child, I most often saw tomatoes on my plate (as it were) at Rally’s.  No wonder I picked the sad things off, pinching each one with the tiniest edge of fingertips, avoiding as much contact as possible.  I eventually tired of constantly dealing with the poor things (that’s what I get for making a special order at a fast food restaurant), and would deign to eat them more and more frequently, eventually not even requesting their exclusion.

These days, in stark difference to my younger years, I love a good tomato.  There was never any satori-esque revelation of eating that first real tomato for me, nor am I really even sure when I started liking them.  I imagine it must have been shortly after I graduated from college, and may have involved a certain guy who claimed to “eat them like apples”.  Whatever the reason, I am now a sucker for the sweet acidity of a juicy summer tomato.  Not so much a devotée of the cooked tomato, I think there’s hardly anything better than a crisp, raw tomato, full of bright flavor that never lasts quite as long as you’d like.

Until now, that is.  Catching up on some (very) old magazines, I recently drooled over Molly Wizenberg’s article in last September’s issue of Bon Appétit.  In it, she paints her usual and stunning image, this time of the pomodori al forno from Café Lago in Seattle.  She speaks of begging for the recipe.  She speaks of overhearing a man claim it’s “the best appetizer in Seattle”, these humble plum tomatoes, roasted low and slow with olive oil and oregano, then layered with garlic and parsley.  For a girl like Molly, and for a food town like Seattle, that’s awfully big talk, especially about such a humble dish.  I had to try it.

This week’s theme was the perfect excuse to try a batch out, since I had already penciled in a tomato-basil combination.  I was dreading any monstrosity involving raw tomatoes, which would just turn to liquidy goo inside a loaf of baking bread, and hated to resort to leathery sun-dried tomatoes.  Besides, tomatoes are definitely in season right now; I had no reason not to try the recipe.  Fortunately, it made more than enough roasted tomato for the bread, leaving plenty left over to provide fodder for my overactive culinary imagination.

It’s a good thing, too – they’re just as amazing as promised.  Soft without ever turning mushy, intense without ever overpowering, these are the best cooked tomatoes I think I’ve ever had.  In the soft heat of the oven, hey somehow pull into themselves, intensifying their essence, and flavor the olive oil at the same time.  They’re gorgeous.

Thinking that the moisture-rich tomatoes would weigh down a yeast bread, I opted to include them in a savory quick bread, brightened with the flavor of fresh basil.  I used a bit of whole wheat flour to lend a rustic characteristic to the bread, to complement the homey tomatoes, and to give a little more hearty support.  The oil used in the bread is the olive oil used to roast the tomatoes, adding an extra level of flavor throughout every bite.

While baking and cooling, the bread smelled nothing short of heavenly.  A mixture of slow-roasted tomato, basil, and fresh bread filled the kitchen, making it very difficult to wait out the required cooling period.  When sliced, the tomatoes dotted each piece in a lovely mosaic.  And the taste!  Lightly grainy, it was fresh with basil, but overall the flavor was of rich, full tomato, the sort of depth you know that has taken no shortcuts.  The interior was soft, with a pleasant crunch to the crust surrounding it.  It was just as I hoped it would be, and it was delicious.

This is not the fastest “quick bread” to make, considering the 2 to 3 hours needed for roasting the tomatoes; and you could easily take the shortcut of using oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes instead.  But then there’d be no leftover roasted tomatoes hanging about your kitchen, and that, Gentle Reader, would be the real tragedy.  Take it from a tomato-lover who knows.

Roasted Tomato Basil Bread
Makes one 9 x 5 inch loaf

For roasted tomatoes:
1 cup olive oil, divided
2 pounds plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, seeded
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh Italian parsley

For bread:
6 1/2 ounces (1 1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
3 1/2 ounces (3/4 cup) whole wheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh basil, or 1 to 2 tablespoons dried
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup olive oil from roasted tomatoes
5 roasted tomatoes halves, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1.  To roast tomatoes, preheat oven to 250° F.  Pour 1/2 cup olive oil into a 13 x 9 x 2 inch glass or ceramic baking dish.  Place the tomatoes in the dish, cut side up.  Drizzle with the remaining 1/2 cup olive oil, and sprinkle evenly with oregano, sugar, and salt.  Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour.

2.  Using tongs, gently turn the tomatoes over.  Bake 1 hour longer.  Turn tomatoes over again, and bake until they are deep red and very tender, about 15 to 45 minutes more, depending on the ripeness of the tomatoes.  Remove from oven.

3.  Gently turn tomatoes over again, and pull off skins, which should slide off easily.  Discard the skins.  Layer the tomatoes in non-reactive medium-sized bowl, sprinkling garlic and parsley over each layer.  Drizzle the tomatoes with the oil left in the baking dish, until fully covered.  Cover loosely, and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours.  At this point, cover tightly and chill up to 5 days.

4.  Position a rack in the lower third of the oven.  Preheat the oven to 350º F, and grease an 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.

5.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt, and basil.  Set aside.  In a liquid measuring cup, mix eggs, milk, and olive oil (from the roasted tomatoes) together to blend.  Coarsely chop 5 of the roasted tomato halves.

6.  Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, and fold until about three-quarters of the dry ingredients are moistened.  Add the tomatoes, and fold just until the pieces are distributed and the dry ingredients are moistened; the batter may be stiff.

7.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.  Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes, or until golden brown.  Let cool in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes before removing from the pan to cool completely on the rack.

Notes:
1.  A note from Molly W.: If you’re making the roasted tomatoes outside the height of tomato season, use best-quality canned, such as Alta Cucina, Muir Glen, or Hunt’s.

2.  You will not use all the roasted tomatoes for this recipe, leaving plenty left over for tossing with pasta, or serving with bruschetta.  Bring tomatoes only to room temperature before serving as an appetizer, leaving oil in the refrigerator.

3.  A word on botulism: while botulism poisoning is rare, storing whole cloves of garlic in oil at room temperature is a good way to grow the botulinum toxin.  Please do not store the roasted tomatoes at room temperature!  I do, however, consider this recipe safe if the following precautions are taken: 1) that the garlic is chopped into very small pieces (reducing the habitat for any toxin that may be present), 2) that the mixture is stored in the refrigerator, and 3) that it is consumed within 1 to 2 weeks.  Considering that the toxin does not grow well at pH levels below 4.6, and that tomatoes are consistently around 4.0 to 4.11 on the pH scale, I feel that the tomatoes help by increasing the acidity of the mixture.  If you are very concerned, or would be feeding this to very small children or elderly people (whose immune systems may be compromised), you can use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic.  Alternatively, chopped or whole cloves of garlic may be roasted with the tomatoes, to flavor the oil, then strained out and discarded (or eaten immediately) before storing the tomatoes.  For fairly thorough discussion on botulism, garlic, oil, and the risks involved, see this link.

Week Thirty-One: Breads With… Foods

A few weeks ago, I featured a week of breads made with fruits, followed by a week of breads made with vegetables.  But during those two weeks, I ran across many foods that can’t be tidily classified as either.  The tomato, for example, is a fruit, botanically speaking; but who really uses it as such?  What about pumpkin?  Because of the seeds on the inside, it caused a gentle ruckus when I announced my intention to use it as a vegetable.  Oh, and let’s not even start on the discussion of eggplant, which is technically a berry.

So this week, I’m focusing on all those orphan foods that aren’t quite vegetables or fruits, but fall somewhere in between.  I’m kicking it all off with one of my favorite non-vegetables, the mushroom.  Technically, a mushroom is a “spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus”*; so does that mean it’s actually a fruit?  I think that might be stretching it (what’s the difference between a “fruiting body” and a “fruit”?).  I may not know precisely what they are, but I do know that I adore mushrooms.  I can’t possibly imagine why people don’t like them, but I know many who don’t.  That’s fine; it means more mushrooms for me.

One delightful pairing with mushrooms is the sweetness of corn, both of which have a natural affinity for butter.  You can find recipes from here to next week that combine these; but oddly, only rarely in a bread format.  I’ve seen polenta with mushrooms, corn chowder with mushrooms, cornbread and mushroom stuffing, but not much bread as such.  Time to rectify that!

With this bread, I wanted not only to use corn, but also to pay light homage to a favorite dish of mine, pasta with mixed sautéed mushrooms.  Rather than choose one or the other, I decided to combine my favorite cornbread recipe with a semolina-based bread I’d made previously, and create semolina cornbread.  (Turns out someone had beat me to the idea.  C’est la vie.  But I has mushrooms!)

The mushrooms are lightly sautéed in butter or olive oil, whichever you prefer, and seasoned with thyme for a little background herbal flavor.  You can certainly add a bit of Sherry or cream as they cook, neither of which would be out of place.  Bourbon would be another excellent choice, and I was very tempted, but I decided to stay plain with these and see how it turned out.

The end result was exactly what I was going for.  Or, it would have been, had I remembered to include the salt.

Yes, I forgot the salt, and you could really tell.  My first bite told me things weren’t right.  Oh, the texture was spot-on crunchy and tender, just barely sweet enough, full of mushroom flavor; but yet, it was all somehow flat and dry.  My eyes closed in slow-motion as I realized what I had done, and I wondered how I had made such an elementary error.  So I did what any cook would’ve done – I picked up the salt shaker.

A pinch of salt made things right; the seemingly-dry texture of semolina and cornmeal changed magically into a pleasant and toothsome bite, the dull mushroom turned, Cinderella-style, into a rich, earthy lustre, and I knew I had a winner on my hands.

Adding flavorful ingredients to cornbread is a common and wonderful way to add some zing to an otherwise plain bread; and if you like mushrooms at all, I highly recommend trying this recipe.  The thyme flavor is subtle here, and I wouldn’t hesitate to add more if you like; feel free to substitute rosemary, mint, or any other favorite herb in its place.

Just don’t forget the salt.

Mushroom Semolina Corn Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

1/2 to 3/4 pound mixed mushrooms (button, cremini, oyster, etc.), chopped into small pieces
2 to 3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaped tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing pan

1. Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 425 degrees.  Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.

2. Heat a large, nonstick pan over high heat.  Add 1 tablespoon of butter or olive oil; heat until hot but not smoking.  Add enough chopped mushrooms to cover the bottom of the pan, about a third or half of the mushrooms.  Toss or stir until coated, and add a pinch of salt.  Cook, stirring or tossing, until lightly browned and softened.  Remove to a bowl.  Repeat with remaining mushrooms.  Add thyme, stir, and let sit until slightly cooled.

3.  In a large bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, semolina, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.  Set aside.

4.  Lightly beat eggs, buttermilk, and milk together.  Add egg mixture to the dry ingredients, and stir quickly until almost combined.  Add mushrooms and melted butter, and stir until ingredients are just combined.

5.  Divide batter evenly among greased muffin cups.  Bake at 425º F until golden brown and lightly cracked, and edges have pulled away from the sides of the pan, about 20 minutes.

6.  Transfer pan to wire rack to cool slightly, about 5 minutes.  Remove from tins and serve warm.

Notes:
1.  Muffins can be stored, wrapped in foil, for up to 1 day.  If not eating within that time, freeze.  Reheat muffins in a 350º F oven for 5 to 10 minutes, or until heated through.

2.  No buttermilk?  Warm 2/3 cup of milk in the microwave for 30 seconds, then add a splash of white vinegar.  Let it sit for five minutes, then use as directed.

3.  The amount of mushrooms used here is variable; use the lesser amount for a more subdued flavor, but use the larger amount for big mushroom flavor.

* – Quoted from Wikipedia.

Week Thirty: Biscuits

One easy way to change the flavor and character of a biscuit is to substitute a different grain for some of the wheat flour.  In the South, also known as the Land of Biscuits, people have long been making biscuits with cornmeal added to them.  These are quite good when used as a topping for a casserole, or lightly sweetened and used on a cobbler or crisp; but they’re transcendent simply with butter and honey.  Need I mention a pairing with barbecue?

And as much as I wanted to make cornmeal biscuits, that wonderful middle ground between biscuit and cornbread, as much as I wanted to enjoy a pleasant breakfast or two of coffee and a sunshine-yellow cornmeal biscuit, as much as I wanted an excuse to slow-cook a pork shoulder, I just couldn’t do it.

This is the reason.  And this.  And this.  And these guys, too.  The one thing all those recipes have in common is that they necessitated the purchase of strange and unusual flours.  (It’s for the blog!  Why not?)  When I counted this morning, I had at least 14 different kinds of flour in my cabinet.  Fourteen!  Who does that?

And so, I’m beginning the slow march towards a cleaner pantry.  I will use all these flours, come hell or high water.  And I started today, with the buckwheat flour.  No, these aren’t very similar to cornmeal biscuits, but they do use the same principle of adding a different grain to get a totally different biscuit.  I figured it was as good a place as any to start.

After bidding a fond adieu to the charmingly rustic cornmeal biscuits in my mind, I turned my thoughts to a more cosmopolitan biscuit.  If I was going to give up those carefully-plotted breakfasts (I was going to maybe even go out and buy a newspaper!), I wanted something darned special in return.

Knowing that buckwheat and salmon could hardly be better friends, I was enticed by images of smoked salmon ribboning over the edge of a tiny buckwheat biscuit, bending under the feather-weight of a homemade yogurt garnish.  And certainly a heavy pinch of black pepper in the dough would add the soignée touch that would elevate these biscuits to black-tie status.  For these, I was willing to give up cornmeal biscuits.

The end result was exactly what I had conjured: an earthy, blini-inspired take on ordinary biscuits, crisp-edged and tender inside, with a building heat from the black pepper that makes you sit up and pay attention.  Bold and unassuming at the same time, potent and sophisticated, they’re the biscuit counterpart to that sneakily-lethal cocktail, the addictive French 75.  You don’t need salmon to enjoy these biscuits, as they were a lovely match for a thick cup of coffee at breakfast, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt if you had some lying around.

As much as I do enjoy cornmeal biscuits, they can wait.  I figure there’s plenty of cold weather up ahead that will be begging for any excuse to heat things up with a nice bit of pork in the oven, roasting away for hours on end.  Until then, I’ll just enjoy this gorgeous summer warmth with an excuse to cure a side of salmon with lemon and dill, stashed safely in the refrigerator!

Buckwheat Pepper Biscuits
Adapted from Crescent City Collection: A Taste of New Orleans, by the Junior League of New Orleans
Makes about 15

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
6 ounces (1 1/3 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
3 ounces (2/3 cups) buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2/3 cup cold buttermilk

1.  Preheat oven to 400° F.  Grease a large baking sheet, or line with parchment paper.  Cut the butter into as small pieces as possible.  Pile loosely on a small plate and freeze while preparing remaining ingredients.

2.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pepper.  Add partly-frozen butter and moving quickly, toss and pinch butter into flour with fingertips, tossing the mixture around to be sure to reach all pieces of butter, until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Large flakes or pea-sized lumps are just fine.

3.  Add the buttermilk to the flour mixture, and fold quickly but gently with a fork or nonstick spatula until all dry ingredients are moistened and a rough dough forms.

4.  Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.  With floured hands, press the dough together into a cohesive mass.  Liberally dust the top with flour, and fold the dough in half (you may need to use a bench scraper to help with this).

5.  Using a rolling pin, and dusting with flour as needed to prevent sticking, gently roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thick.  With a round cutter or a small drinking glass, and using a decisive stamping movement, cut as many biscuits as you can, cutting each out as closely as possible to the next one.  Do not twist the cutter.  Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet.

6.  Gather scraps together by gathering in from the sides, pressing the cut sides together.  Do not re-knead or re-roll for the best results.  Form biscuits from scraps either by hand-shaping or by cutting.  Transfer scrap biscuits to the prepared baking sheet.

7.  Bake biscuits at 400° F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.  Let cool on the pan for a minute or so, then transfer biscuits to a wire rack to finish cooling.  Serve warm. 

Notes:
1.  Biscuits can be stored at room temperature, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil, for 6 to 8 hours.  Before serving, rewarm in a 350° F oven for 5 minutes.  If not eating within that time, freeze, wrapped in foil.  To serve, bake unthawed and unwrapped, for 10 minutes at 350° F.

Week Thirty: Biscuits

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t think there’s a man, woman, or child in this country that doesn’t enjoy a good biscuit.  But sometimes, you want something a bit more special, a bit more interesting than simply a plain biscuit, as good as it may be.

Enter the sweet potato biscuit.  Known in the South for ages, the sweet potato biscuit has only fairly recently made its way above the Mason-Dixon line, charming palates and winning hearts all the way.  The idea is simple: biscuit + sweet potato = sweet potato biscuit.  But how such a simple addition can result in something so universally beloved, so scrumptious, is still a mystery.

Adding sweet potato to a biscuit adds a gorgeous orange hue and an earthy, lightly sweet flavor, one that goes perfectly with a slice of good ham and a spot of mustard or horseradish (or both).  It also makes for a more tender biscuit, as it adds moisture, and – to a much lesser extent – the fibrous sweet potato helps shorten any strands of gluten that form.  This is not license to over-knead or over-work your biscuit dough; but it does help a little, and every little bit helps with biscuits.

These biscuits are, of course, an excellent addition to any brunch menu, sunny, cheerful, and wholly welcoming, stacked high on a plate.  But as good as they are with simply butter and a cup of coffee, they’re just as good used for more savory applications.  Try serving them with a seared duck breast, perhaps with a bit of cranberry (or any other tart berry) sauce on the side.  If you prefer your lily gilded, throw a pinch or two of cayenne pepper into the dough.  Sweet potatoes and cayenne are best friends, and would be just heavenly topped with a blushing slice of duck.  My mouth is watering!

Sweet Potato Biscuits
Makes about 16

1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes
3/4 to 1 cup cold milk, plus extra for brushing tops
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
8 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1.  Preheat oven to 400° F.  Pierce sweet potatoes a few times with a fork.  Wrap tightly in aluminum foil, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until very soft.  Let cool, and remove skin.

2.  In a glass measuring cup, mash 1 cup of cooked sweet potato.  Stir in the milk, a little at a time, until the mixture measures 1 3/4 cups.  Place mixture in the refrigerator to chill while preparing other ingredients.

3.  Grease a large baking sheet, or line with parchment paper.  Cut the butter into as small pieces as possible.  Pile loosely on a small plate and freeze while preparing remaining ingredients.

4.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add partly-frozen butter and moving quickly, toss and pinch butter into flour with fingertips, tossing the mixture around to be sure to reach all pieces of butter, until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Large flakes or pea-sized lumps are just fine.

5.  Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, and fold quickly but gently with a fork or nonstick spatula until all dry ingredients are moistened and a rough dough forms.

6.  Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.  With floured hands, press the dough together into a cohesive mass.  Liberally dust the top with flour, and fold the dough in half (you may need to use a bench scraper to help with this).

7.  Using a rolling pin, and dusting with flour as needed to prevent sticking, gently roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thick.  With a round cutter or a small drinking glass, and using a decisive stamping movement, cut as many biscuits as you can, cutting each out as closely as possible to the next one.  Do not twist the cutter.  Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet.

8.  Gather scraps together by gathering in from the sides, pressing the cut sides together.  Do not re-knead or re-roll for the best results.  Form biscuits from scraps either by hand-shaping or by cutting.  Transfer scrap biscuits to the prepared baking sheet.

9.  Lightly brush the tops of the biscuits with milk.  Bake the biscuits at 400° F for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.  Let cool on the pan for a minute or so, then transfer biscuits to a wire rack to finish cooling.  Serve warm.

Notes:
1.  Biscuits can be stored at room temperature, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil, for 6 to 8 hours.  Before serving, rewarm in a 350° F oven for 5 minutes.  If not eating within that time, freeze, wrapped in foil.  To serve, bake unthawed and unwrapped, for 10 minutes at 350° F.

2.  You can bake the sweet potatoes up to 2 days in advance, and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.  An added benefit with this approach is that it keeps your liquid mixture cold, so as not to melt the butter, crucial for making tender biscuits.

Week Thirty: Biscuits

Okay, yes.  I’ve already made biscuits.  Twice.  But I’ll be honest: I’ve got houseguests in town.  And since they’re quite lovely people, I don’t want to spend every waking moment making bread, or waiting on bread, or even thinking about bread, really.  I needed a theme for this week that would get me out of the kitchen, one that would let me enjoy their company.  But what?

While pondering this theme-tastic problem over dinner recently, a dear friend of mine proposed “Biscuit Week”.  Sure, I thought, biscuits absolutely fit the bill: they’re quite fast to make, cook in the little time it takes to do the washing up, and hey hey, we get breakfast out of it too!  Perfect!  And yet, how many kinds of biscuits can there be?  I’ve already made fluffy and flaky, what else is there?

Plenty, as it turns out.  A quick search for “biscuit” on Epicurious returns 161 results.  On one website!  Google “biscuit recipe“, and you get about 478,000 results!  Obviously, there’s an awful lot of biscuit out there.  Of course, just by changing one small ingredient, or by varying amounts, you technically create a new recipe, so there aren’t exactly 478,000 different biscuits running around.  But there are at least 6 different kinds (other than simply fluffy and flaky), and that’s all I need.  So thanks to my friend Rion, it’s all biscuit, all the time this week!  (Good thing my houseguests like biscuits, right?)

The first biscuit this week is called a “drop biscuit”, and it does what it says on the tin.  You know, like drop cookies?  The ones you scoop and just drop onto the baking sheet?  Exactly.  With drop biscuits, there’s no rolling, there’s no need for round cutters, there’s no flour all over your counter.  This is precisely why they’re sometimes known as “lazy biscuits”.

Basically, these are made the same way as regular biscuits; that is, cold butter is cut into the flour, and liquid is then added.  (For a more in-depth discussion of that method, see this post about fluffy biscuits.)  But one main difference with drop biscuits is that the dough needs to be wetter, so it will actually drop.  The dough shouldn’t be soupy, but it should be too sticky to knead.

Because of the way drop biscuits are made, they’re not exactly the prettiest biscuits, often squat and unevenly-shaped.  But I’ve often found that the most homely dishes are often the most delicious, and that’s certainly the case here.  Pretty biscuits, ones that have been rolled and carefully cut out, have been handled quite a bit.  This handling can over-produce gluten, which makes your biscuits tough.  Drop biscuits are handled very little – just to mix and scoop – and are therefore generally very tender.  Just take care not to overwork the butter (move quickly!), or overmix the dough, and you’re almost guaranteed success.

You can get more height out of your biscuits by placing the dough so it touches on the baking sheet, which lets the biscuits grab onto each other as they rise in the oven, and makes them taller, as well as moister.  But if you must have those beautiful, deliciously crisp edges on your biscuits, you can space the dough apart; just be prepared for shorter biscuits.

These biscuits are just barely sweet, and go just as well with a plate of beans and rice for dinner as they do with coffee and scrambled eggs for breakfast.  These are everday biscuits, quite easy to throw together, and able to pair with a wide variety of foods.  You can of course vary the flavor by adding herbs or spices – dill or black pepper are classic – but they’re just as good eaten plain, or with a little butter or jam.  They might look a little unkempt and rustic, but they could hardly taste more elegant!

Drop Biscuits
Makes about 15 biscuits

6 to 8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
9 ounces (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup cold buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1.  Preheat oven to 425° F.  Grease a rimmed baking sheet, or line with parchment paper.  Cut the butter into as small pieces as possible.  Pile loosely on a small plate and freeze while preparing remaining ingredients.

2.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add partly-frozen butter and very quickly pinch and rub in with fingertips, tossing the mixture around to be sure to reach all pieces of butter, until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Pea-sized lumps are just fine.

3.  Mix the buttermilk and the baking soda together.  Add buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture, and fold quickly but gently with a fork or nonstick spatula until all dry ingredients are moistened.

4.  Using a large spoon or a portion scoop, drop 1/4 cupfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheet.  The biscuits will rise taller and be moister if they are dropped touching each other.  If you prefer a crisp-edged biscuit, drop them apart from each other, not touching.  Either way is fine.

5.  Bake biscuits at 425° F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown on top.  Let cool on the pan for a minute or so, then transfer biscuits to a wire rack to finish cooling.  Serve warm. 

Notes:
1.  Biscuits can be stored at room temperature, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil, for 6 to 8 hours.  Before serving, rewarm in a 350° F oven for 5 minutes.  If not eating within that time, freeze, wrapped in foil.  To serve, bake unthawed and unwrapped, for 10 minutes at 350° F.