By Request: Biscuits

Hello, readers. Reader. You know who you are.

I am, to be honest, a little surprised that I've been asked to provide a recipe for biscuits, but what the hell; maybe you know you don't like the one you've got in that big fat cookbook collecting dust on the shelf. Or maybe you just don't own a cookbook. Maybe you know you could look it up online, but are worried that the recipe wouldn't be up to Miss Edith's exacting standards.

Have no fear.

Now, this biscuit recipe is posted to go with the previously posted Tomato Pie recipe, which is from Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking. In that essay, she actually gives a biscuit recipe, but I'm going to admit something sad: there's another recipe I prefer. And so that is what I will share with you.

The following is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, which is really the best basic cookbook from the last twenty years at least -- The New Joy of Cooking is also excellent, but I count that as being in a different category, really. JoC is required. Bittman isn't required, but it would be a really, really, really good investment, and I cannot recommend a cookbook more, with this one caveat, which is that the desserts never seem to work out for me. But every other chapter is BRILLIANT.

Anyhow: biscuits.

2 cups all purpose or cake flour, plus more as needed
1 scant tsp. salt
3 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2-5 tbs. cold sweet butter
7/8 cup plain yogurt or buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl or food processor. Cut the butter into bits and either pulse it in the processor or, if working by hand, cut it into the dry ingredients. You can do this by using two table knives, cutting the butter into tiny pieces and coating them with flour, acting as if you're somehow scimitaring the stuff, or you can use a pastry knife thingy, which is fine but a pain to use, or you can do it by hand, which is easiest and probably fastest, but you have to watch out that your hands' warmth doesn't just melt the butter. What you want is for the butter to lightly coat the dry ingredients -- you want a final product that looks like very coarse bread crumbs, say. The fat is what's gonna make for flakiness here, so the slightly uneven distribution of butter is key -- if you wanted uniform distribution, you'd melt the butter, and then mix, but just don't do it, ok?

Thank you.

Now: with a large spoon mix in your yogurt or buttermilk and stir until you've got a ball of dough. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead ten times. You may add a little flour if the dough seems unbearably sticky but don't let it get too dry.

For tomato pie, divide into two parts -- I generally have the bottom layer slightly thicker than the top layer, so halving the dough wouldn't be quite my routine -- and then continue on with your tomato pie recipe.
For biscuits, cut into shapes as your heart desires. Bake at least 7 minutes in a hot oven (450 deg.) for a pale biscuit; longer baking time will make for a darker crust.

These are excellent Sunday morning biscuits, by the way. And you can do things to them to make them snazzy for parties or something -- put in some cheese, or herbs, or little bits of pimento, or whatever floats your boat. Tasty.