American Biscuits and Gravy

He's a British guy, but he's never tried American Biscuits and Gravy! It was only when I made the American Starbucks Blueberry Scones that I realised I'd have to make American biscuits to find out the difference between biscuits and scones. I'm chuffed to find out that the biscuits and gravy (which is sometimes called sausage gravy, white gravy or even just country gravy) were absolutely incredible! Mrs B had to hide them from me afterwards...

Ingredients

American Biscuits

• 120g (1 cup) self raising flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch salt
• 42g Butter
• 113ml Buttermilk

American Sausage Gravy

• 500g pork mince
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper
• ¼ tsp sage
• ¼ tsp ginger powder
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• 5 gratings nutmeg
• ¼ tsp dried thyme
• ¼ tsp paprika
• 60g butter
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 350ml (1½ cups) milk
• 2 rashers smoked streaky bacon

American Biscuits and Gravy Recipe

1. The first step is to make the scones…I mean biscuits! Mix the dry ingredients in a big bowl - that’s the flour, baking powder and bicarb - with the buttermilk, that slightly acidic creamy stuff. Knead in the butter gently.
2. Now this is similar to an English scone recipe, you just simply need to stamp out circles to make your biscuits. I used a large water glass to get that nice round shape. The only difference really is that we don’t have any sugar in here!
3. Bake for 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 200C. While they’re baking you can start on the sausage gravy!
4. Fry or grill your bacon until it’s nice and crispy, then cut into little pieces.
5. In a big bowl, mix together the pork mince with the herbs and spices: salt, black pepper, sage, ginger, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, thyme and paprika. Brown the mince mixture in a hot pan with 30g of the butter. Once this is browned, remove it from the pan.
6. Now it’s time to make a roux, which is absolutely not something we’d do in a traditional British gravy so it feels a bit strange! Melt the rest of your butter and whisk in the flour until it’s smooth. Finally pour in the milk and whisk until it comes together for about 3 to 4 minutes.
7. Now dump in the flavoured pork and the bacon, then stir through to coat it.
8. The final step is to halve your biscuits, pour over the sausage gravy, and enjoy! If you’re like me though, you’ll want to hide the rest of them!