Welcome to the Southern Dish! Try Ma Ma's Biscuits!

Well, it is official. After months of transferring my beloved Southern recipes from my head to my computer, the Southern Dish blog is being launched. The idea for this blog came about as friends and I lamented about how much we love Southern food and how unbelievably unhealthy it can be sometimes. That led me to share with them a few of my tricks to decrease the damage that good Southern food can wreak on a healthy diet and how to keep every bit of the taste. During our chat, my friends and I all agreed that there are some Southern foods that just cannot be altered for any reason.

What we need, I decided, is a place for all of us who love Southern food to capture the traditions we love, so they will never be lost; a place to share the new twists we've come up with for our Southern dishes; and a place to, well, dish about the role of food in the South and in our lives.

And the Southern Dish was born.

So, I'll go first. In this first posting, I'm going to share one of my favorite traditional Southern recipes. This is my grandmother’s biscuit recipe. I’ll probably be disowned for sharing it, but they are, truly, the best biscuits ever. Yeah, I know... everybody's grandmother's are the best! Think you (or your grandmother) have the best biscuit recipe? Send it in a comment and tell us the history behind it! I invite you all to join in. Share your Southern recipes, traditional or "modernized," and let's dish about our favorite Southern foods!

Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe

Like many great cooks, my grandmother doesn't really measure much. These are her ingredients, and my best guest on proportions. I made biscuits the other day using these measurements, and they came out just like hers, so here goes...)

2 c. all purpose flour (we like White Lilly)
1 T. baking powder
¼ t. salt
½ c. shortening
2/3 c. buttermilk, plus more as needed for proper dough texture
Extra flour for kneading

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the mound of the flour mixture and place shortening in the well. Do not stir yet. Slowly pour in buttermilk while using a fork to incorporate the dry ingredients, shortening, and buttermilk together, working the flour in slowly from the center outward. Continue mixing until all ingredients are incorporated into soft dough. You may need to add very small amounts of buttermilk as you incorporated the ingredients, so that you can work in all the flour. Be careful, though, not to over moisten. You want to have just enough moisture to work everything into a soft dough.

Turn dough out onto a floured work surface. Dip front and back of fingers into extra flour and knead until surface of dough is just past being sticky(10 or so times; try to handle the dough as little as possible). Keep hands lightly floured while working with dough. Pinch off bits of dough and, using your hands, roll into small balls (2 inches in diameter). Place balls on very lightly greased cookie sheet and flatten with the back of your fingers into ½ inch-thick circles (2 1/2 - 3 inches or so in diameter). Or roll out your dough with a floured rolling pin and cut 'em out if you prefer. I like them shaped by hand.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until biscuits are golden. An old pan that's no longer shiny works best.

What's your favorite Southern dish?