The Chef's Special is dedicated to recipes, tips and stories from recent catering events offered by our Director of Culinary Operations, Clint Hughey.

JANUARY 2010

We hope you all had a great holiday season. I know I was fortunate to visit my home town of Nashville for Christmas & New Years. It was great to see family and friends. While in Nashville I was able to stop by some local favorites, such as Loveless Café, known for their biscuits, country ham, & red-eye gravy, for some good times and better eats. I also had the pleasure of going to my favorite city of New Orleans for Halloween. I wanted to focus this Chef’s Special on my travels to the South and what inspirations I had while I was there.

While in New Orleans this last time I stumbled across a little, tucked away, one store brick building in the central business district named Mother’s. It was around 11:00 in the late morning before we first ventured out of our room from the late night of funky rhythms coming from Frenchman St., and realized there was a line literally around the block jacked full of locals and tourists alike just to get into this dive. So, I thought this is a place we have to try. Once inside, while still waiting in line to order, we had the chance to look over their extensive menu of New Orleans classics such as red beans & rice, crawfish Etoufee, and their famous country ham & biscuits. After getting our food, or should I say our little piece of heaven, we were blown away as this food resonated deep into our souls with a level of comfort only the South knows how to dish up. Well worth the wait, I highly recommend Mother’s to anyone visiting the “Big Easy”.

I noticed a great similarity between these two favorite destinations, amazing biscuits! There is nothing like country biscuits to take me back to my childhood growing up in the South. One of my fondest memories were of my best friend Matt’s grand mother, Mammy, fixin’ us down home biscuits on Sunday morning. Even after watching her make these biscuits a hundred times, I can still not make them as good as her but I will share with you my favorite breakfast, Biscuits & Gravy.

Country Biscuits & Gravy:

Biscuits: Gravy:

2 cups Flour 1 lbs Jimmy Dean’s Sage Sausage

1 Tbs Baking Powder ¼ cup Flour    

½ tsp Baking Soda 1 qt Whole Milk

½ tsp Salt ½ tsp Salt, or to taste

      ¼ cup Shortening ½ tsp White Pepper

      4 tsp Butter 1 pinch Cayenne Pepper

      2/3 cup Buttermilk

For Biscuits:

Preheat oven to 450. Mix dry ingredients together well. Using a pastry cutter, cut in shortening and butter until the mix resembles coarse cornmeal. Using a large spoon fold in buttermilk until moistened. Transfer to a floured work surface and begin to gently knead the dough, careful not to over work, because the less the biscuits are handled the flakier they will be. Cut into eight even portions and pat to form ½ inch shaped rounds. Biscuits should be irregularly shaped and spaced about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter.

For Gravy:

Brown sausage in large skillet, get a good caramelization on the outer edges of the sausage before crumbling into smaller pieces. Once browned through, remove with slotted spoon and set aside. Using 4 Tbs of the sausage drippings, or add enough butter to compensate, add flour and stir into a roux, cooking over low heat until slightly blonde, about 3-4 minutes. Then slowly add in milk while stirring to combine with roux. It is important to do this part slowly and to only add more milk when you have an even texture and all lumps are removed. Good ol’ fashioned elbow grease is the real secret with this dish. Remember the gravy will not reach full thickening power until it reaches a boil, but you do not want to boil for more than just a few seconds. Once you have reached your desired thickness, return sausage to pan, mix well and add seasoning. The gravy will should be really thick at this point, add more milk until you have reached your final desired consistency and adjust your seasoning. Pour sausage gravy over open faced biscuits and hot damn you got real country biscuits and gravy, mmm good!!!