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Featuring Neese's Country Sausage.

Hi Frig!

Have never had biscuits and sausage gravy

You are missing out on one of life's finest culinary experiences.  If you decide to tackle this yourself, remember, the key to any good sausage gravy is, well, good sausage.

 

It is easy and goes like this:

1 lb of genuine, no filler, no BHT, BHA BPA, water or other extraneous kaka country sausage

Biscuits.

Brown sausage, depending on how much fat is left behind, you might want to remove the excess. Neeses leaves very little fat behind. You need the fat to make the roux.

 

Whilst your sausage is browning, make biscuits. For heaven's sake, do not succumb to can biscuits. Make 'em yerself boy!  I use Jiffy mix for my biscuits as I cannot find lard up here to make baking powder biscuits. No matter, Jiffy biscuits are quite good.

 

When sausage is browned, and I do mean browned, not gray not any hint of pink (you should have broken it up whilst cooking into nice bits) add 1/4 cup of all purpose flower to pan (sausage is in the pan).

You can "amp up" the flavor by adding your choice of seasonings, I use 2 teaspoons of fresh ground black pepper, about half teaspoon of ground sage. I use no additional salt as the sausage I use has enough salt for taste.  You might need to add a bit more, depending on what sausage  you use.

 

Stir the flour covered sausage around a bit in the pan, cook for 1-2 minutes until you see NO and I do mean NO traces of white uncooked flour. Failure to do this will result in gravy tasting like paste. And we all know what that is like.

Once you do this, add 3 cups of whole milk. Notice I said whole.  We're making gravy here, not appealing to the health conscious (which is why this is a treat, not a weekly meal for me). You can add more milk if you have a crowd but keep in mind, this gravy is studded with plenty of sausage; adding more milk will dilute the sausage to milk ratio. Keep that in mind.

 

Also keep in mind that there is an unwritten rule when it comes to sausage gravy:

 

It is to be made with milk. Not water, not some half ass percent milk. Not skim. But plain whole milk.  That way  you get the creamiest, smoothest, best gravy out there.

 

Biscuits should be out of the oven by now. If they get slightly cool, no worries. Some full ladles of steaming hot sausage gravy will warm 'em up in a jiffy.

 

Now pay attention to your gravy. You need to gently stir it at a heat setting slightly below medium. Too much heat and you scorch the gravy and it will taste burnt. Too little heat and it will never thicken.  Don't be alarmed if at first it seems like soup.  That is ok. You want that gravy to start thin so you can allow the sausage to flavor it by spending as much time as possible in the gravy before serving. Resist the urge to dump more flour in. And for god sakes, don't add cornstarch. It isn't necessary. Just let the gravy slowly simmer whilst you stir; you avoid lumps that way.  Good food takes time and sausage gravy is no exception.

 

Now you can hog out like I do and eat this for breakfast and dinner. Or you can really wow your friends or neighbors and invite them over for a feast.  If you're really gung-ho, fry up some hashbrowns to serve on the side.  If you make plenty of biscuits, serve them with apple butter or your favorite jelly. A pot of hot coffee works fantastically well as an after dinner beverage.  In my case, it works well before, during, and after.

 

And that's it. Not hard really just takes a bit of time.  I actually hated this as a child; my palate ran to sweets like sugar laden cereal or pancakes flooded with store bought syrup. As I grew older, probably 12-13 something like that, I took a liking to it and haven't looked back.

 

But I want to emphasize this: You absolutely must have good quality sausage. I don't know what is up in your neck of the woods but in case you are interested and want to take a fling at this in your own home I'll save you the time and trouble on what to avoid.  As in avoid like the plague.

In no particular order, the Breakfast Sausage Hall of Shame:

Tennessee Pride.

Old Folk by Purnells

Jimmy Dean

Bob Evans

Eckrich

Smithfield

Gwaltney

Anything with Walmart's name on it.

Any "store brand" sausage.

 

None of the above deserve to be called country sausage.  All of them contain water. Most contain the BHT BHA and other crap.  Some even have soy protein added as a filler.  None of them are worth a plug nickel. In fact it would be an insult to the canine world if you attempted to feed Fido any of this crap.  Show your pet some respect please!

The only outfit that tops Neeses and they cannot ship out of state, is Myers Frozen Foods in St. Paul Indiana. That was the outfit that butchered our hogs and it was one of the few places around that gave your the hog your brought in.  Back in the day, like 30 something years ago, their sausage used to cost something like $1.69 in a one pound plastic breadsack package. I miss it dearly.   It was pure, wholesome, and darn tasty.  Fried up beautifully never tough, never shrank to nothing.  Golly, I'm tempted to make a road trip to get some.

 

Any questions?

I doubt it is up in your neck of the woods.  Try your local butcher and see what he has in the way of country sausage.

Dig it Xraytech. I love home fries, with a bit of onion in there for extra flavor. yum yum.

What about on homemade egg noddles!

What about on homemade egg noddles!

That's a thought, I've never tried it though.

Building still looks the same on outside as I remember back in the late 70's.  Price on the sausage went up but not a helluva lot considering the time that has passed.

with heavy cream, not whole milk. I melt some butter into the flour as well. Just don't tell my cardiologist!

your secret is safe with me.

Some of the those Hall-of-Shame sausages used to be good.  That was a long time ago.

I make my own, probably never the same twice.  I’m always ready to try a new recipe, and I’ve picked up a couple here.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of breakfast, especially when extended family were visiting my grandmother.  She put a crazy mess of food on the table: bacon and sausage, scrambled eggs, her homemade biscuits, gravy, mounds of butter, homemade blackberry jam and apple butter, sliced tomatoes, orange juice, coffee. For us, this wasn’t particularly winter food.  In fact, we probably had it more often in the summer, which is when all the cousins passed through. 

Oh, how I miss those days. 

JOhn you certainly brought a tear to my eye with your post. Especially the apple butter.

My great gradmaw was a Kintuckian who migrated to s. Indiana. And she could put on a feedbag let me tell you. pretty much everything was fried, in lard no less, but she fed her young 'uns and her great grandchildren with aplomb.  You walked away from THAT table hungry, it was your own fault.