NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
April 1, 1999
Eating biscuits is like getting a massage. Once you've had even one, you'll want more. And like a massage, which requires you to enlist the skills of a masseur or masseuse, eating biscuits also requires a partnera culinary partner. It's those partners I intend to focus on here.
In case you're feeling disappointed because this column won't contain a biscuit recipe, don't fret. In general, it's not the biscuit recipe that determines how good your biscuits will be. It's how you handle the biscuit dough. The key is not to overwork the dough. Once you've got the shortening cut into the dry ingredients and you've added the liquid, knead the dough only long enough to get the mixture to cling together. And don't roll your dough out too thin. I roll my biscuit dough out 1 inch thick so my biscuits will come out of the oven about 2 inches tall.
If you subscribe to the minimalist philosophy of life, you'll require at least a dab of butter or margarine on your biscuits. If the biscuits are almost too hot to handle, I'll agree that butter is probably enough, but only on occasion. Most of the time, I prefer my biscuit-eating experiences to be more involved.
For breakfast biscuits, the perfect accompaniment is milk gravy, which I thicken with a roux made of flour and the pan drippings from the sage-laced sausage I make from scratchwith sage from our garden.
Ever try using biscuit dough for a pizza crust? This works particularly well for a brunch, especially if your "pizza" ingredients include smoked salmon, green onions and chopped tomatoes. Your "sauce" can be a thin layer of cream cheese blended with a hint of Dijon mustard.
But there's really no better partner for a handsome homemade biscuit than a bowl of stew. The following recipe is one of many available from the North Dakota Beef Commission. This stew is easy to make so you can focus more of your culinary attention on those biscuits.
Burgundy Beef and Vegetable StewYield: 6 servings (1 cup each)
Ingredients:
1½ pounds beef eye round
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 13.75-ounce can beef broth
½ cup burgundy wine
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1½ cups baby carrots
1 cup frozen whole pearl onions
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
1 8-ounce package frozen sugar snap peasProcedure:
Trim fat from beef and cut into 1-inch pieces. In Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat, add beef (in two batches) and brown evenly. Pour off drippings and return all the beef to Dutch oven. Season with salt, pepper and thyme and add broth, wine and garlic. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover tightly and simmer 1½ hours. Add carrots and onions and continue cooking for another 35 to 40 minutes, or until beef and vegetables are tender. Bring stew to a boil. Dissolve cornstarch in water and add mixture to stew. Cook and stir for one minute and then add the peas. Reduce heat and continue cooking and stirring for 3 to 4 minutes, until peas are heated through.
What's Your Take on This, Julie?
Although we usually think of stew as a comfort food suitable for a blustery winter day, it's certainly a nutritious dinner entree for any season. Besides, with a little advance effort, you can let it simmer in a slow-cooking pot and come home to a great meal.
Stew is a universal dish with many different names and a variety of ingredients. You might ask for a bowl of ragout in France, stufato in Italy, sukiyaki in Japan or curry in India. Stews also vary in terms of what cooks use for thickening. In the United States, these vegetable/meat mixtures usually are thickened with flour. In Czechoslovakia, stew might be thickened with pumpernickel crumbs, while in Argentina, potato water might be used.
Stews are a one-dish meal, and they vary in their nutritional value depending on the ingredients used and the cut of meat chosen. Less tender cuts of meat such as round steak can be used because the long cooking time and moist heat involved in the stewing process soften the collagen and tenderize the meat.
Some people aspire to cut meat out their diets, pointing to fat or cholesterol content as reasons, but actually animals today are bred to be much leaner. Interestingly, while the total fat content in the diet per capita has increased (probably due to the increased intake of foods fried in vegetable oil), animal fat intake actually has decreased. When cooking meat, use low-fat cooking methods such as broiling, baking or grilling.
Besides providing high-quality protein, meat is an excellent source of minerals such as iron, zinc and phosphorus. Iron is part of hemoglobin, the pigment that transports oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the body. Zinc is necessary for growth and repair of tissues and immune function. Phosphorus plays an important role in maintaining the acid/base balance in the body, as well as playing roles in metabolizing carbohydrate, protein and fat.
A serving of Burgundy Beef and Vegetable Stew (about one-sixth of the recipe) contains about 350 calories and 10 grams of fat. It also provides more than a full day's recommendation for vitamin A from the carotenoids in the carrots, 54 percent of the daily recommendation for vitamin C and about one-fourth of the daily recommendation for iron from the beef. And it tastes great with biscuits.
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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136
Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187
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