Guest writer: Pamela Walker, writer and local farm and food activist (www.GrowingGoodThingsToEat.com)
I recently rendered lard I bought from Red Mesa Meats and put it in a wide-mouthed jar and keep it stored in my refrigerator. I like to add a little lard to a simmering pot of beans and sometimes to a braise of mixed greens, especially collards and mustards. I especially like making biscuits with lard instead of shortening whenever I have some from a pasture-raised animal on hand. Lard produces a lighter texture and richer flavor.
For many years, my favorite biscuit recipe has been the one in Linda West Eckhardt’s The Only Texas Cookbook (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1981). I follow it except that I omit the sugar, and I use a half cup of whole wheat flour and one and a half cups of unbleached wheat flour rather than two cups of unbleached wheat flour. If I don’t have buttermilk on hand, I add a little vinegar, preferably Mary Campbell’s Rancho Arco Iris apple cider vinegar, to whole milk, and I substitute lard for shortening. For baking, I use a cast iron skillet big enough to leave a little space among the biscuits.
While the biscuits are still hot from the oven, I enjoy slathering a couple with butter from Old Windmill Farms and adding just a dab of apple butter from Camino de Paz. I buy smoked bacon from Red Mesa and eggs from various vendors.
Leftover biscuits are good, too. Sometimes for a quick breakfast, I halve them and toast them lightly and spread a little cream cheese from Old Windmill Dairy on them – way better to my taste than a bagel.
Linda West Eckhardt’s Country Biscuits
Ingredients:
Makes about 1 dozen medium biscuits
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
5 tablespoons shortening
1 cup buttermilk
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients, then cut in shortening with a pastry blender. If you want to do it the real old-fashioned way, mix it with your hands. This is a good sit-down job. You can even read while you’re doing it.
- Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in buttermilk. With a fork, mix very lightly, just until the flour is thoroughly moistened.
- Turn out on a floured board and knead just 2 or 3 times. Pat out dough until it’s about as thick as an ear of a prickly pear cactus (1/2 inch), then cut with an inverted drinking glass or a biscuit cutter. At this point you can freeze what you don’t want to bake for this meal. Then just pull them out of the freezer 30 minutes before baking.
- Bake in preheated oven 12-15 minutes on a pan well greased with butter or fresh bacon grease. I always turn them over once to mop their tops with oil.