Of course, that's what they said about Claudio Ranieri, romano and romanista. Mister Ranieri may not have won anything during his two stints coaching our (and his) beloved AS Roma, despite coming within a whisker, but no die-hard Roma fan will ever forget his tears flowing in the middle of his last game at the helm in May 2019, when the fans unfurled a banner honoring his service to the club in its time of need. Mister Ranieri has been derided throughout his coaching career with the nickname "Tinkerman," referring to his habit of rotating his squad and changing formations so often that he rarely puts out the same team two games in a row. José Mourinho, the enemy of modern attacking football,[2] was especially hard on Mister Ranieri. But then the Tinkerman "masterminded one of football's greatest ever achievements," Leicester City's 5000-to-1 run to the Premier League title in the 2015-2016 season, proving that tinkering is not necessarily a losing strategy.
I certainly haven't produced anything to rival Mister Ranieri's achievement, but I'll keep tinkering anyway. Most of the changes I make are small things that I don't even call attention to when tweaking a recipe, like allowing for more salt when cooking pasta or mixing cheese with cornstarch before adding it to a hot dish to keep it from clumping up. But if the changes seem substantial enough, or if it's essentially a new recipe, then I write it up that way and post it separately, like Hummus 2.1 and Granola 2.0, which are two of the most viewed recipes on UaKS.[3]
Today's tinkering falls somewhere in the middle. These aren't huge changes from the original Buttermilk Biscuits. All the ingredients have been tweaked a tad (I left the sugar out entirely; you can add back a teaspoon if it's too austere for you like this), and even the method is generally the same. But after making these four times in the last few weeks,[4] I've got it down now so the biscuits come out consistently light, tall, straight, and flaky, and there's enough different that I think it's worth upgrading to a new version.
---------
[1] Brad refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the Last Banana Bread 2.0 and makes the original Last Banana Bread for himself.
[2] After his Inter team beat Barcelona in a Champions League semifinal in 2010, Mourinho famously bragged that his team gave the ball away because "I didn't want us to have the ball" for tactical reasons.
[3] Which, let's face it, ain't sayin' much.
[4] Cassie begged once, and Mom wanted peach shortcakes for her birthday dinner.
 |
| Biscuit-making tools |
 |
| I used a 2-inch biscuit cutter for this batch and got some extra biscuits. Notice how they're baked shoulder-to-shoulder, just barely touching. Can you tell which biscuits were made from reformed scrap dough? |
 |
| Dylan and Moriah’s Thanksgiving biscuits |
Buttermilk Biscuits 1.5
Time: 30 minutes
There are lots of ways to combine the butter with the dry ingredients. I think rubbing it in with your fingertips is easiest, but you can also cut it in with a pastry blender or a food processor. You can also grate the butter into shards using the large holes of a box grater, though that’s easier to do if you freeze the butter for 10 to 15 minutes before grating.
340 grams/12 ounces (~2⅞ cups) all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons (16 grams) baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
85 grams/3 ounces (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
285 grams (1 cup + 3 tablespoons) cold low-fat buttermilk or kefir
1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 450 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. Cut the butter into very thin pats or small cubes (see note). Scatter the butter pieces over the dry ingredients, then rub them in using your fingertips; work fast to keep the butter from melting. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the cold buttermilk. Using a silicone spatula, stir just until mostly combined but still slightly shaggy (the dough will be sticky).
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Using your hands or, better yet, a flexible plastic bowl scraper, gently fold the dough over on itself and flatten it. Repeat 7 more times, turning the dough 90 degrees between each fold (this will help make flaky layers in the baked biscuits). Gently pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick rectangle.
5a. For round biscuits: Cut the biscuits out using a floured 2½-inch biscuit cutter, pressing straight down all the way to the work surface to cut the dough before twisting to punch out and remove the biscuit. Gather the leftover dough scraps, press them together between your palms to a 1 inch thickness, then lay the dough flat and continue cutting out as many biscuits as possible. You should get about 7 or 8 good biscuits and 1 or 2 kinda scrappy ones.
5b. For square biscuits: Using a floured bench scraper or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 8 equal squares, pressing straight down.
6. Arrange the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet (they should fit on a 13-by-9-inch quarter-sheet pan if you have one) so they just barely touch (this helps the biscuits rise straight up instead of flopping over). Bake for 7 minutes, then rotate the pan, and bake until golden brown on top, about 7 more minutes.
7. Serve warm with butter and jam, or cool completely to make strawberry shortcakes or ham biscuits.
No comments:
Post a Comment