Biscuit Wah @biscuitwah@toomanycooks.social

part of this traditional southern breakfast

starting a new tradition of carnitas on christmas eve!

when those are done, combine them with the rest to make a dough:

- 8 oz flour
- 4 tbsp melted butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar

knead for 10 minutes in a stand mixer, then put it in an oiled bowl and cover for an hour to rise.

then cut them into 6 equal pieces (weigh them) and roll into balls. i like to tug all the wrinkly bits up to the top, pinch them together, then flip it, to make the pinched part the bottom, and the smooth stretchy part the top.

place them into an oiled 5x8 high-walled glass pan, 2x3, and rest for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 375 F.

bake for about 30 minutes, until a meat thermometer says the center is 200 F. cool for a few minutes so you don't burn your tongue!

my recipe is small and makes only 6 rolls (for 2)

tangzhong style involves cooking some of the flour over low heat for a few minutes, until it becomes a thick paste, like a bad gravy. the pre-cooked flour absorbs more moisture from the rest of the dough.

- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/3 cup water
- 1/4 cup flour

you can bloom your yeast while this is cooking, if you like making sure your yeast is good.

- 1 tsp dry yeast
- 1/3 cup warm milk

attempted "tangzhong" style dinner rolls and in fact they were quite fluffier than usual!

one roll pictured here, with mushroom-pork stroganoff

part of this balanced breakfast

homemade indian buffet

my half of last night's dinner was an experiment: grits with miso butter stirred in. i call it a success! it went really well with jj's spicy pork

a thing that you should never, ever do is take a loaf of greenlee's schedule-1 cinnamon bread, soak each slice in a mixture of egg, ice cream, and rum, and fry it up like french toast

i mean look at this jam

ok @jjwolverine just replicated *perfectly* this appetizer of fig jam & goat cheese on toast from my favorite wine bar (sadly off limits since march)

but he made the fig jam himself from figs in our yard!

i tried to make marshmallow treats out of honey bunches of oats with almonds. it did not work

however it tasted like an amazing oat brittle

if you haven't seen alton brown make rice krispies treats during the pandemic, it's truly amazing and worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dworC_RqzHw

last night's cooking project: i made slider buns and @jjwolverine made tiny turkey burgers and cole slaw

in the south, cole slaw is uniformly white, with _maybe_ a bit of orange carrot peeking out... so this was weird (and tasty!) to see cole slaw with a bunch of new colors

turns out each slider bun is about 1oz of flour. i made 9 from 8oz (1/2 pound) but the corner ones were a bit sad -- it's hard to make dough stay in a square!

it’s so shockingly easy to make lemon frosting

nothing good can come of this

my current cocktail is "the second wave":

- 1/2 shot homemade blackberry syrup
- 1/2 shot fresh lemon juice
- 2 shots bourbon

alcohol kills germs.

ok excuse me EXCUSE ME what the fuck is going on here

are we making cotton candy?

4 egg whites aren't even 1 cup, how the hell is this anything but "sugar with some eggs floating in"

(... my usual meringue recipe is 4 egg whites and 1/6 cup sugar and i like it fine... is this because i don't drink mountain dew?)

basic biscuits:

- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, frozen and grated
- 1 cup cold buttermilk (or: 1 cup milk with 1 tbsp lemon juice stirred in)

1. use center rack of the oven. pre-heat to 425F.
2. mix the dry ingredients, then stir in the frozen grated butter.
3. fold in buttermilk until the dough can stick together.
4. turn out onto a lightly floured surface, roll into a rectangle, then fold it into thirds, like folding a letter. (you can lightly dust the surfaces with flour to keep it from sticking too bad.) repeat this rolling and folding 5 or 6 times.
5. cut into rounds, place right next to each other on a sheet, and bake for 15 minutes.
6. biscuits!