feeding // fashionistas

May 21, 2006

The Ghost Of Biscuits Past: Bisquick

George C. wrote this mid-afternoon:

Throughout the last week, something sinister has haunted my dreams. An eldritch vapour from childhood, wafting with considerable malice, wraithlike around my head. I avert my eyes- I dare not stare into this vortex of culinary anachronism, ere I go mad with unutterable longings… Bisquick, BISQUICK is it’s name! I am no longer afraid to speak it aloud.

Locals from the seat of my youth (when they get up the nerve to speak of it, usually after a flagon or two of rum) say my parents were bless’d (or, perhaps, curs’d) with an unearthly ability to produce all manner of doughy foods with an unnatural fluffiness. Pancakes like pillows beckoned. Drop biscuits floated like clouds, daring children become petty thieves as they cooled. What occult force was responsible?.

All along, my parents explained that the yellow box held nothing but white flour, oil, baking soda and salt. The neighbors nonetheless continued to be haunted, much like I am now, by dreams of perfect waffles, created with a mere swirl of the hand and a preternatural gleam in my mother’s eye. What vile ur-beast’s tentacles reached from hellish chambers beneath the sea through interdimensional portals into that innocent, gleaming box’s contents, hoping to enslave (or, at least, fatten) those who dared to open it?

..anyway, I’ve been reading too much HP Lovecraft again. Seriously though folks, Bisquick and all of its enthralling abilities weighed heavily on my mind this week. By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I knew I couldn’t keep the urge down any longer. I wanted WAFFLES- and not just any old waffles.

The only conundrum, how to make waffles without a waffle iron? Crap, what have I got that employs two heated plates with some kind of striated surface.. Crikey, THE PANINI PRESS! Perrrfect, perfect.. I shall set my plan in motion, said I..

By the way, I lament the fact that there are no pictures for this recipe- I was so glassy-eyed the whole time and the food was gone so fast there wasn’t time to even look for the camera. In fact, what’s a camera? MMM WAFFLES *#*!# *fizzle*

Crispy Waffles with Strawberry-Raspberry Sauce:
Feeds about two. Or maybe one. Only you can guide your future. I can only hope you don’t follow me down the accursed path I chose…

First, the sauce:

Slice up a decent handful of strawberries and drop them into a nonstick pan set to low. Add a slightly smaller handful of raspberries and a lug of maple syrup.

(By the by, I found fresh strawberries and frozen raspberries to be a really good mix for this, but use whatever forms you have. It’ll be ai’ght, ai’ght?)

Spirit an almost imperceptable pinch of salt into the pan, just enough to make the berries melt better. ..and melt they will, especially given a little pressing action with the back of your wooden spoon. Throw in a bit of brown sugar and a squeeze of lime while you’re at it.

Does the mixture look a little chunky and watery? Splendid. Cover the pan, leaving a bit of breathing room, and let it simmer.

On to the waffles:

Preheat your panini grill (or waffle iron, if you wanna be stodgy about it.. jeez).

Pour 1 cup Bisquick into a bowl and add 2/3rds of a cup of milk (cow or soy) into it, stirring with gusto. Pour in a scant tablespoon of cooking oil, and quiver with anticipation. The batter has been completed.

What? That’s it? Yes. That’s it. That’s the power of this long-worshipped powder.

..but back to the matter at hand! (O, how the recounting of this tale makes me shiver so!) Spoon a dollop of the batter into the center of your grill and close gently, opening it again only once the steam has lessened, or you smell something on fire.

The resulting waffles have stripes in only one direction, and are devilishly thin and crisp. You could easily break them into long strips and create some kind of haute-couture amuse-bouches for that 5am sunrise cocktail party, if you’re that sort. Acai and starfruit and creme fraiche, oh my..

Your sauce should be well and truly saucy by now. Add a bit more syrup if the sauce is too thick to drizzle. Spread a bit of butter on the waffles, lavish on the sauce and bask. Bask away. You’ve just been indoctrinated. *cue thunder* Muhahahaha..

Of course, as the weekend wore on, it became clear that a taste of honey (or in this case, unspeakable horror/yumminess) is worse than none at all. That first brush with the arcane led my mind to wander further into the abyss. It was decided. Another dish/sacrifice was neccesary.

Now, I thought, what sinful, old-world dish have many tried to make vegetarian and failed, ending up half-mad and harried, clutching their silicone spatulas as they shivered in the linen closet? At last, I zeroed in on the next recipe- a perfect subject for my scientific exploits. An opportune place to introduce 50s-era Americana to 00s-era hi-tech soy products and revel in the aftermath.

Vegetarian Biscuits and Sausage Gravy:
Feeds two humans, or one loping, shadowbound beast.

The gravy:

Crumble one vegan sausage into an iron skillet set to low-medium. I used chipotle-flavored Field Roast for this. VGS.

In a nonstick pan, melt a tablespoon of butter and add a couple of tablespoons of white flour (not Bisquick, in this case). Cook over low heat while stirring well to create your roux.

Add one cup of 2% milk (or soy), and break up any remaining lumps of roux with the back of the aforementioned wooden spoon (sense a pattern forming? A diabolical pattern?)

Drop in a handful each of finely chopped fresh dill and cilantro. Grind a good bit of black pepper over top. Splash in a dollop of Bragg’s, a dash of your favorite louisiana-style hot sauce, and a squeeze of lime. Keep stirring, partner.

Once the sausage is nicely browned, toss it into the pan and integrate it into the proceedings. You’ll end up with something very much like this:

Only far, far better photographed, one hopes.. Again, the smells were getting to me and I could barely hold the camera..

Leave the mixture on a warm burner and get to cracking on The Biscuits of Certain Corruption.

Preheat the oven to 450.

Mix 1.5 cups of the hallowed Bisquick and one half cup milk together. Add in the scraps from when you chopped up the herbs for the gravy. Slice up a clove or two of garlic and fold that in.

There, that’s finished. See what I mean? There’s no artistry possible- the powder does it all. It’s nasty, pernicious stuff.

Drop by the rough spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet and bang it all into the oven for 8 or 9 minutes or until they’ve puffed up and turned golden. Don’t foolishly cook them on a wire rack like I did or you’ll end up with this mess on the other side afterwards:

I ended up with 6 decent-sized drop biscuits. Just enough for two. I ladled the gravy atop these wonderful biscuits, just like any man would do. I’m afraid that now it is too late for me. I will ne’er be free of this delicious curse. Amazing, amazing stuff, this.

Anyhow, after all of that, my girlfriend and I were sent into some kind of daydream, and when we awoke there was only this much left of the food:

..and it was spectacular, I have to tell you. However, the entire box of Bisquick was gone without a trace. Perhaps it had new acolytes to gather.. New souls to spoil. In its wake, it left our kitchen in a shambles..

Still, I cannot shake the notion that this was all worth it, somehow.

My parents really only bought Bisquick once in a while, usually at my proddings. They much preferred to feed me actual food! However, for all that have ever marvelled at the dizzy perfection of a KFC biscuit, it is fun indeed to be able to make something just as vapid and thus, immensely satisfying right in one’s own kitchen now and then.

Out of sheer slow-food guilt, I resolve in the coming weeks to make my own baking mix out of free-range stoneground spelt flour, expeller-pressed grapeseed oil, celtic salt and baking soda mined from a pristine cave in the wilds of Marin. I hope in doing so I will succeed in ridding my poor, addled mind of this soul-searing, processed scourge forevermore.