Dirty South Biscuit Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. (The faster the better, you don't want the fats to melt.) Make a well in the center and pour in the chilled buttermilk. Stir just until the dough comes together. The dough will be very sticky.
• Turn dough onto floured surface, dust top with flour and gently fold dough over on itself 5 or 6 times. Press into a 1-inch thick round. Cut out biscuits with a 2-inch cutter, being sure to push straight down through the dough. Place biscuits on baking sheet so that they just touch. Reform scrap dough, working it as little as possible and continue cutting. (Biscuits from the second pass will not be quite as light as those from the first, but hey, that's life.)
• Bake until biscuits are tall and light gold on top, 15 to 20 minutes.

Steps:

• For the sausage gravy:
• In a large heavy bottom pot melt the tablespoon of butter and brown the sausage for about 5 minutes. Add the heavy cream and bring to a simmer. Once at a simmer, add the hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and maple syrup. Simmer the gravy for 15 minutes and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
• For the biscuits:
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
• In a bowl sift together the dry ingredients. Add the butter and incorporate the flour into it until the texture is consistent. Pour the milk into the flour mixture and mix with a fork until the dough begins to come together.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out until it's about 1-inch thick. Cut the dough vertically and then horizontally, yielding approximately 15 square biscuits. Lay the biscuits out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Glaze the top of each biscuit with a little bit of cream and place the sheet in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the biscuits turn golden in color.
• Assemble by placing a biscuit on a plate and covering it with about 1/2 a cup of the sausage gravy.