February 4, 2010

Sausage Gravy and Biscuits...Amish Style

Even though my family is large --huge by some standards-- we're still not Amish "size". Our Amish neighbors have 11 children! I thought I worked hard cooking for our crowd! They have 11 and some of them are big, strappin' boys! I have a few Amish Country cookbooks that I just love. Flipping through them gives me a glimpse into her life and an appreciation for cooking for a large crowd. From a few of these books I've found (and scaled down, believe it or not!) a great recipe for sausage gravy and homemade biscuits. Hubby loves these biscuits! He's a biscuit snob, so they must be good!

Sausage Gravy

1 lb. sausage

3/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

4 1/2 cups milk

Brown and crumble sausage (don't drain it). Add flour, salt and pepper and stir. If the sausage is dry, you may need to add a bit of shortening when adding flour. Add milk while stirring. Heat until it starts to boil and reduce heat and continue to stir until thickened. Makes about 5 cups of gravy.

Homemade Biscuits

4 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

8 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cream of tartar

4 tsp. sugar

1 cup shortening

1 1/3 cup milk

Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles course crumbs. Add milk all at once and stir until dough follows fork around bowl. Roll 1/2 thick.* Use a large glass or a canning jar to cut biscuits. Place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Makes about 30 biscuits.

*Note: The key to light and fluffy biscuits is not to work the dough too much.


3 comments:

Kendra at New Life On A Homestead said...

So, I'm assuming this is just all purpose flour, or is it self rising? I still know nothing of making biscuits!

Carmen at Old House Homestead said...

Kendra,

To make it easier I'd just use all purpose, but if you only have self-rising then you could use 4 cups of that but then you'd have to add 3 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, the cream of tartar, sugar, etc..

Here's the substitution for 1 cup of self-rising flour in case you're interested:

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder, plus
1/8 teaspoons salt.

Remember...the key is to cut them thick enough and don't handle the dough too much. : )

Kendra at New Life On A Homestead said...

Awesome! Thanks so much. I think maybe I've been cutting my biscuits too thin. Perhaps that's why they aren't rising all big and fluffy. I'm gonna give your recipe a try next time around :) Thanks again for explaining!! I'm totally clueless.

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