There’s a pattern emerging. It all starts with me cleaning my kitchen. And I mean deep cleaning. The kind where the gloves go on and the stove comes apart. I should mention that this doesn’t take place very often, but when it does it’s always the same thing. As soon as I’m done I get this nagging feeling. It’s clean. It’s too clean. Look at those sparkling countertops just begging to be covered in flour and dough.
Some part of me can’t stand a clean kitchen. Is that weird? It’s nice and all; I just need to mess it back up as soon as possible. So since I completed one of these deep cleaning sessions yesterday afternoon, then went out for dinner… the moment I woke up this morning I knew what had to be done.
Biscuits.
Not your average biscuits either. This recipe calls for an amount of butter that should be illegal. When I first saw it I had to do a double take. Two and a half sticks of butter?! Even the great Ina Garten caps it at 1 1/2. Without doing much math you can tell these biscuits are about as fatty as it gets, but I like to pretend the fresh herbs make it healthier.
I’ve made these herb biscuits several times now with different combinations of rosemary, thyme, chives, sage, and parsley. All were delicious. This morning the only fresh herb I had was parsley, but I also had scallions, which sounded intriguing. The overwhelming urge to flour up my countertops was greater than my desire to go to the grocery store, so I went with it, and I’m glad I did!
Side note: Another thing I didn’t have on hand was buttermilk, but there’s an easy solution for that. Add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to 1 cup of milk and let it sit for several minutes until it curdles. Poof! Makeshift buttermilk!
Scallions work really well in this since they have a sharper flavor than herbs, which helps to cut through the richness of all those sticks of butter. The resulting biscuit is a tower of light, flaky layers that serve as a comforting accompaniment to breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Herb Scallion Biscuits
Adapted from Real Simple, November 2011
Feel free to go crazy with the herb/scallion combinations. If you’re using scallions, I’d keep the same ratio of 3 Tbs scallions to 1 Tbs herbs. If you’re going for herbs only, use about 1 1/2 Tbs herbs, like the original recipe calls for.
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 3 tablespoons scallions, finely sliced
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) butter, cubed
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
Method
- Heat oven to 400° F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, scallions, baking powder, herbs, salt, and baking soda. Add the butter and, using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut in until crumbly. Add the buttermilk and stir until just moistened (do not overmix).
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead it a few times to bring it together. Gently shape into a 1¼-inch-thick disk. Using a 2½-inch round cookie cutter or a small glass, cut out 12 biscuits (flouring the cutter and reshaping the scraps as necessary). Place on 2 baking sheets and bake, rotating the baking sheets halfway through, until golden, 15 to 20 minutes.
Yields
12 biscuits
