French Fridays with Dorie – Haiku
So, biscuits are French?
They are if you rename them:
“Saint-German-des-Prés”!
What I learned from this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is that if you add a little something to the ingredient list of an otherwise well established staple you can then give it an extraordinary sounding name of your own choosing.
Dorie added onions to the ordinary biscuit and rechristened it with the very French sounding “Saint-Germain-des-Prés Onion Biscuits”. I added a bit of fresh thyme to the mix and was going to rename them once again but who can come up with a name better than this?
Unlike Dorie, I’m not likely to serve these to friends with a bottle of champagne for madcap effect.
“Oh look at us! We are eating biscuits with our champagne! Aren’t we crazy!”
At least not while I still know how to make the more elegant gougères.
An American serving biscuits to the French must be akin to a Frenchman serving gougères to Americans, don’t you think? (At least this makes sense to me if not to you.)
Half of Dorie’s biscuits (with thyme, mind you) found their way to the freezer. The other half found their way to lunch where they anchored some rather tasty bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches.
What small tweaks to you make to rather common recipes that transform them into your house specialty?
Saint-German-des-Prés Onion-Thyme Biscuit BLT’s
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. Inspired by bacon.
This is what you will need:
- 6-1/2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
- 1 small onion, peeled, trimmed, and finely diced (about 1/2 cup)
- 2 Tablespoons minced thyme leaves
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup cold whole milk
- bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo
This is how you make it:
- Make the biscuits: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Have a biscuit or deep cookie cutter, one that’s between 1 and 2 inches in diameter, at hand.
- Put 1/2 tablespoon of the butter in a small skillet or saucepan and cut the remaining 6 tablespoons butter into 12 pieces.
- Set the pan over low heat, melt the butter, and add the onion. Cook, stirring, just until it softens, about 3 minutes. Pull the pan from the heat.
- Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl and whisk the ingredients to combine. Drop the butter pieces into the bowl and, using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture until you’ve got a bowl full of flour-covered pieces, some small and flakey and some the size of peas.
- Scatter the cooked onions over the mixture, then pour over the cold milk and, using a fork, toss and turn everything together until you’ve got a soft dough. If there are some dry bits at the bottom of the bowl, reach in and knead the dough gently a couple of times.
- Lightly dust a work surface with flour, turn the dough out, and dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour. Pat the dough down gently with your hands (or roll it out with a pin) until it is about 1/2 inch thick. It doesn’t have to been an even square or round; it doesn’t even have to be an even 1/2 inch thick. Just do the best you can and do it quickly.
- Dip the biscuit cutter into the flour bin and cut out as many biscuits as you can–cutting the biscuits as close to one another as possible – and transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet, leaving a little space between each one. Gather the scraps of dough together, pat them down, and cut as many more biscuits as you can; put these on the lined baking sheet, too. (You can make the biscuits to this point, freeze them on the baking sheet and then, when they’re solid, pack them airtight and freeze them for up to 2 months. Bake them without defrosting–just add a couple of minutes to the baking time.)
- Alternatively (and perhaps more economically), you can pat or roll out the dough, then, using a long knife, cut square biscuits, making each biscuit about 1- to 1-1/2 inches on a side.
- Bake the biscuits for 15 to 18 minutes, or until they are puffed and lightly browned.
How do you say thyme in French? Hmmm… I would add rosemary or perhaps something sharp, like feta my biscuits. But now, you got me wanting to make gougeres too. What kind of twofer post is this??
I had no idea all I needed to do was tweak and rename with something elegant. All I know about Saint German des Prés is that it’s a Métro station. P’raps I should do some Googling. 🙂
The biscuits do sound lovely.
Yours look great. I too wanted to make these into sandiwches but instead I ended up with crispy shortbready things. Delicious. But a disaster. Jealous of yours.
So if I added a charmingly styled scarf to my self, I could give myself a fabulous nom de plume too???
Nah, don’t see it happening 🙂
Lovely biscuits…
Yeah, I think filling these beauties with bacon would have changed the verdict from the men in the family. Beautifully done…and where else would I get food inspiration AND a Haiku??
I love that you made them into BLT biscuit sandwiches! I only went so far as to having bacon on the side. Nice haiku!
Look what Dorie’s done
Made biscuits something fancy
Wonders never cease
I like your version
Fresh thyme – a new invention!
Quick, copyright it
Mmm I would love to move into some herb additions. These are a great canvas.
Oh yeah…biscuit BLTs. These look wildly good.
Oh man, BLTs are the best thing ever, no matter what bread they’re on. Those look perfect.
Wow! Those look wonderful and I love, love, love the BLT angle. Well done! 🙂
Naming an American-style biscuit something Parisian is a bit too precious for my tastes and (I would imagine) completely bewildering to the French.
However, if you’re going to tart them up and insist upon their re-christening, you might as well go all the way and name them after the graphically-named streets of the old bordels:
Adding sausage? Biscuits Tire-Boudin.
Shredded Comté? Biscuits Gratte-Cul.
I can’t even begin to think what one might put into Biscuits Trousse-Nonnain, let alone Biscuits Pute-y-Muse, but coming up with them would be a fascinating challenge.
BLT – yummy! I wish I had thought of that
I love your tribute: inspired by bacon! LOL! I’ll bet these were just perfect for petit sandwiches.
Have a fabilous weekend!
I like your biscuit sandwiches, tres chic!
I’m in the gougeres served with sparkling wine camp, for sure, preferring these biscuits like you’ve served them here, a little soup on the side, even better;-)
Love your blog’s title, and your photos are amazing. Job well done with the BLT’s.
The biscuits look scrumptious and make a great
BLT sandwich. I think one could add many different flavors to this dough and they would be tasty.
Love the first photo, so appetizing.
Well american or not, that first picture looks like it’s straight out of Paris. Your sandwiches look delicious, makes me wish that I still had some leftover biscuits and some bacon hanging around.
Love, love, love how you turned this into little sandwiches!
Fun post! Fresh thyme must have been a delicious addition, and your little BLTs look lovely. I have a little left over bacon and some of the biscuits in the freezer…
Yum!! Bacon and anything!
Plain biscuits, no more.
Onions, olives, peppers, herbs.
A revelation.
I love that you used these for BLTs. I wish that I lived in a place that has tomatoes that look like that in March?
Oh I bet the thyme was a wonderful addition! Your biscuits look wonderful…love the little sandwiches. I agree…gougeres go so much better with champagne!
Personally I like my St. Germain in cocktails, but biscuits will work. I guess with a fancy name you can “frenchify” almost anything, including the All-American comfort food known as a biscuit!
BLT. Awesome. Bacon. That’s what these biscuits needed. 🙂
Bacon! My husband’s nickname is The Bacon Man. Wonder why I didn’t think to add bacon?
BLT’s aren’t French either but yours looked delicious. Love your poetry.
Mary http://www.lightsonbrightnobrakes.com/
That first photo is beautiful, Trevor. Your biscuits look so good especially with those thick slice of tomatoes. Turning these into BLTs is a great idea. So was adding the thyme.
Trevor, you are such a sweetheart! I’m planning an Elton John party for my 50th (UGH!) birthday in September. You guys should come! There are some nice hotels right on the water.
Lovely!
After seeing these, I am in agreement that biscuits are not just for breakfast nor for indulging in while sipping champagne!
I am sure Dorie would love the fact that you have now introduced them as a staple for every meal! Great addition with the thyme. Hope you are enjoying the weekend!
“Saint-German-des-Prés”
with bacon no less, oh my
Makes eating French fun.
GREG
I love the addition of thyme to the biscuits. I bet they will taste delicious. You BLT’s looked yummy:) Hope you had a great weekend.
Your little BLTs look perfect for lunch and I love your addition of thyme. I agree with what you said over on my blog, this sort of baking is very grounding, especially when you can freeze the results. Being surrounded by more baked goods than you know what to do with could be a little less than grounding.
With their onion flavour, these are perfect for BLTs!