Cook's Country

-"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

Today on "Cook's Country," Lawman and Julia make butter and lard biscuits, I talk about how our preferences for cooking fats changed over time, Adam makes the case for mini food processors, and finally, Bryan visits Asheville, North Carolina, and shows Bridget our version of mimosa fried chicken.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

♪♪ -Biscuits only require a handful of ingredients, so the key to making a good one is putting them together in just the right way.

And today, Lawman's going to show us how he makes his favorite biscuits.

-That's right, Julia.

It's really the story of two fats -- butter and lard -- and how they combine to make the ultimate biscuit.

-Interesting.

-Here, I have a food processor, and that's going to help us make the dough.

-Okay.

-So I have 4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour.

It's medium protein, about 11.7%.

Perfect for making tender baked goods like these biscuits.

-Okay.

I'm going to add 1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder... -Okay.

-...1 1/2 tablespoons of granulated sugar, 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of table salt.

And then I'm going to combine for about three seconds just to incorporate everything.

That's it.

Now, the two fats that I was talking about -- here, I have 12 tablespoons of unsalted butter and six ounces of lard.

They've been cut into half-inch pieces and frozen for about 25 minutes.

So, because they're cut into smaller pieces and they're frozen, they're gonna cut more evenly.

So, we're going to get some nice distribution.

-Yeah, and some flaky layers.

-Exactly.

So, I have 12 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Now, I'm going to add six ounces of lard.

-Alright.

-And then we're going to give them about 14 pulses, just so that it breaks it up and they distribute nicely.

-Alright, so what are you looking for here?

-It's going to look like some sand with little pea-sized shapes distributed throughout.

Add the dough mixture to a bowl.

Now I'm going to add 1 1/4 cup of buttermilk.

So, I'll just stir that in.

It's going to look very shaggy, but you don't want to over-mix because then you're going to get tough biscuits.

So, a little flour showing is not bad.

We're going to turn it out onto a lightly floured counter.

We're going to turn it out and then we're going to knead it for about four or five turns.

So, when I said shaggy, I meant shaggy.

-You weren't kidding.

So, if you added more liquid, that's what makes a tougher biscuit.

-Exactly.

So, now, we have something that -- Again, a shaggy dough.

Looks like a dough.

-You can see some pieces of butter still in there.

-So, we're going to pat it into an eight-inch square, about 1 1/2 inches thick.

So, as you know, I love using the bench scraper.

-Mm-hmm.

Well, it helps you get nice straight edges.

-Exactly.

And if this starts to stick, I'm going to add a little flour to my hands so that I can really get the shape.

-Alright.

There we go.

-Alright.

-So, now, I'm going to cut a quarter inch off the edge because you want a nice clean side so that the biscuit raises right up.

Otherwise, they're going to get slumped on the sides.

Here, I have a nice, sharp chef's knife.

I'm going to flour it up a little bit.

-Ah, just a clean, fresh edge.

-Now, you could use those for a little biscuit bites, or you could just toss them.

Now, I'm going to cut this into nine equal pieces.

-Okay.

-Again, if your knife starts to stick, add some flour.

-Those look pretty great.

-Thank you.

Now we're going to add them to our sheet pan that has parchment lined.

The parchment is going to keep them from sticking, and you want to add them and make sure that they're about one inch apart, so when they do bake, they don't bake back into each other.

-Get married in the oven.

-Exactly.

[ Both laugh ] And I'm going to cover them with some plastic wrap, and what we're going to do is chill them for at least 30 minutes, up to 24 hours so that they get nice and cold so when they go in the oven, you get that nice oven spring.

-Mm-hmm.

-Otherwise, they're going to pool out.

They're going to taste amazing, but they're not going to look as impressive.

♪♪ -Are you a fat snob?

I know I am.

When it comes to baking biscuits and pie crusts, I prefer a mix of butter and lard for flaky results every time.

I developed this preference while studying early American baking recipes.

Back then, recipes used both butter and lard.

Lard is pork fat rendered and clarified.

The most prized type is leaf lard, which is made from the fat around the animal's kidneys.

During World War II, both lard and butter were rationed, so hydrogenated vegetable oil, known as shortening, stepped in to fill the gap.

At the time, medical advice suggested that animal fats were unhealthy, and that led to vegetable shortening largely replacing lard in American pantries.

However, later studies found that the trans fats in shortening were even more unhealthy than animal fats.

Recent changes in the way shortening is made have put animal fats and vegetable shortening on equal footing.

So, at "Cook's Country," we're leaning into the way biscuits were originally made, embracing both butter and lard for biscuits that are flaky and flavorful.

♪♪ -It's been 30 minutes.

The biscuits are nice and chilled.

-Oh, yeah, they are.

-I'm gonna remove the plastic.

We're gonna pop it in a 450-degree oven, the upper middle rack, and cook it for five minutes... -Mm-hmm.

-...and then we're going to drop the temperature to 400 degrees, rotate the biscuits, and cook for 12 to 14 minutes, until they're golden brown.

Okay, so you're jump starting at a higher temperature to get that oven spring, but then you've got to reduce the temperature, or else you're gonna burn your biscuits.

-You don't want burnt biscuits.

-No, you don't.

-Oh, yeah.

Look at these biscuits.

-Look at those.

Wow, you can see the layers, the cracks in the sides, where it's going to be nice and flaky when you break it open.

-We need to let them cool for about five minutes.

In that time, I'm going to make a little accoutrement.

I have 4 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter.

-Okay.

-Then I'm going to add 2 tablespoons of honey... -Ooh.

-...1/4 teaspoon of table salt, and a pinch of cayenne.

-Oh, a spicy honey butter.

-I'm just going to mash that together so everything's incorporated.

-Mmm.

-So, it's just gonna be a few more minutes for the biscuits to cool down, and then we can eat.

-Alright.

I'm looking forward to this.

-Julia, the biscuits are ready to eat.

-Oh, that's the one I wanted.

-There's one for you, eight for me.

-Nice.

[ Chuckling ] Well, look at this biscuit.

I mean, that's like a sandwich-sized biscuit.

-It is, in fact.

Go with some honey butter.

-Oh, yeah, and you can see the lines on the side of the biscuit.

That's where the butter was, and that'll flake apart.

Oh, look at that.

[ Chuckles ] I'm not going to be shy with the honey butter.

Mmm.

-Super tender.

-Lawman, that's a good biscuit.

Super tender.

You have the flavor of the butter and the lard.

It flakes apart right in your hand.

-It's a really good biscuit.

-Mm-hmm.

-As you said, the savoriness of the lard, the butter, the flakes.

-I love the honey butter on top.

That's just awesome.

That honey butter would be good on almost anything, but on this biscuit -- perfection.

Lawman, these biscuits are awesome.

Thank you for showing me how to make them.

-It's my pleasure, Julia.

-If you want to make big square biscuits, start by cutting frozen butter and lard into the flour, chill the biscuits before baking, and give them a jump start at a high temperature.

From "Cook's Country," a fantastic recipe for butter and lard biscuits.

These are awesome, Lawman.

-Most food processors work as advertised.

They process food.

But do you need a larger model or one of the small ones?

Well, Adam's here and he's going to talk about both and tell us which one we should include in our kitchen.

-You know what we call the food processor in the test kitchen, don't you?

-What's that?

-The motorized sous chef.

-Yeah, of course.

-I mean, regardless of which size you have, they're so useful.

We can't imagine a day in the kitchen without these.

They grind, they chop, they dice so much faster than any test cook can with their knife.

-Absolutely.

-They come in different sizes, as you can see.

We have a large one here, a small one here.

These are our two favorite ones.

There are certain things that both of these will do really well -- dicing vegetables, grating hard cheese, grinding nuts, making a dip like hummus or a sauce like pesto.

Both of these can handle it.

Whether you get a large one or a small one, there are certain traits you want to look for in either size.

Number one, you want to have a relatively powerful motor.

Number two, you want to have a sharp blade.

Number three, the tighter the tolerance is between the blade and the work bowl, both the bottom of it and the sides, the more efficiently it will do its work.

If there's too much space, and say you're making a mayonnaise, an egg yolk can get caught underneath the blade and it won't emulsify correctly.

-So, it's a clearance issue.

-It's a clearance issue, and you want the tightest clearance you can get.

You want to have very crisp controls.

If there's a pulse feature, you want this blade to stop moving the second you remove your finger from the button.

That just increases precision in the cuts.

Now, there are certain things that the large size will do a little better.

Again, larger batches of diced vegetables.

If you are going to grind meat for burgers, if that's your jam, the large size is definitely better.

If you are going to slice or shred things, the large models usually have dedicated blades for that, whereas the smaller ones don't.

Cutting fat into flour for making pastry, again, because you have the capacity to do that, and they're also way better at bread doughs.

However, there are things that the smaller one does a little better.

A couple of cloves of garlic, for instance.

Let's try that.

I have three cloves of garlic in each food processor.

I'm going to try chopping it in the big one.

It gets the job done, but you can see that there are some big pieces, there are some really small pieces.

There's just too much room for the garlic to fly around.

Why don't you give it a shot in the small guy?

-Alright.

About the same amount of time.

-About the same amount of time.

-Yeah.

More evenly chopped, finely chopped.

-That's gorgeous.

-A lot better.

So, not only is the little one great for a couple of cloves of garlic or a handful of fresh herbs or small quantities of nuts or grated cheese, it's really good at emulsifying, like, a mayonnaise, for instance, or making vinaigrettes, marinades, other sauces.

And they're also just really useful if you have limited ability to chop things, if you don't have a lot of space for storage or countertop space in the kitchen, or if your budget is more limited.

So this is the winning small one.

This is the Cuisinart Elite Collection 4 Cup Chopper/Grinder.

It's about 60 bucks.

It's our favorite in the small category.

Our favorite in the full size category is the Cuisinart Custom 14 Cup.

It's $249.

Got a 14-cup work bowl, and it is a workhorse of a food processor.

-Well, there you go.

Makes sense.

For big jobs, get the big one.

Small jobs, get the small one.

Or if you have the means, get both.

[ Music playing ] -You'd be hard pressed to find a better food town in America than Asheville, North Carolina.

It's a funky little gem of a city where artists, chefs, and creatives of all stripes have come together to create a unique and colorful community.

I rolled into town on a cold, rainy day, the type of day that calls for some good old Southern comfort food.

Luckily, that's just the type of food they serve here at Biscuit Head.

I'm here to meet the owner, Jason Roy, who might just be the poster child for the Asheville way of life.

-Alright.

You ready?

-Yep.

[ Both laugh ] -Oh, you made me snort.

-Jason started his career as a line cook and chef at fine dining restaurants.

-Thank you, poacher.

-But eventually, he got burned out by the long hours and tough working conditions.

So, what role does Asheville and being in Asheville play in the Biscuit Head identity?

-Honestly, Asheville is such a unique town.

You have a really great network of foodies, you know, people that care about food.

So, all these, like, local artisans that we have that surround us helps create, like, a great cuisine.

-Every morning, guests fill the funky dining room to enjoy their cathead biscuits surrounded by cat-themed decor.

-Apparently, people really like cathead biscuits, these big fat daddy biscuits.

It's kind of this Southern slang for this big drop-style biscuit, and they say that it's the size of a cat's head.

-That explains all the cat-aphernalia.

-The cats.

Yeah, the cats.

-Jason and his team are serving just about anything you can dream of inside of a cathead biscuit.

-Jams, fried chicken, fried bologna.

Put paté on it if you want.

Make it all fancy.

It's a great vehicle for the food here.

-Tell me about all the jams and the hot sauces and everything.

I see, like, banana buffalo hot sauce.

-Well, I'm kind of a condiment, like, freak, like... And so, the jam bar kind of came about.

We have all these jams and jellies, so you can try different flavors of different things and different combinations and literally have this cornucopia of different flavors, you know?

-Jason's greatest creation, in my humble opinion, is his mimosa fried chicken sandwich.

-Okay, we start with our cathead biscuit, right?

You have the delicious cake-like monster of a biscuit sitting on the middle of the plate.

It's all fluffy.

You see the steam coming out of there?

You got these delicious little holes that catch all the flavor.

Then we put this sriracha slaw, then on top of that, we put our mimosa fried chicken that's got this delicious brine -- oranges, mimosas, flavors, all the good stuff.

Crunchy, soft, crunchy, soft, crunchy, delicious, sweet.

All the things.

Then on top of that, we have this, like, buttery, smooth, velvety, sweet potato chai butter.

So, think about that chai flavor with that sweet butter.

Lots of brown sugar.

And then a poached egg on top.

So you get this rich, velvety -- Oh, my -- Crack it open, and then everything just spills over top of it, and you have this just beautiful biscuit.

I don't even know if you can call it a biscuit anymore at that point.

-It's not definitely not a pick-up-and-eat sandwich.

-It's like a spaceship of, like, fried chicken and delicious stuff.

And then you cut into it and it's great.

-It's an intimidating, yet delicious sandwich.

It's definitely a big boy's breakfast here.

It's good because I'm still growing.

Biscuit's super tender.

You get some of that nice buttermilk tang from it.

The sriracha slaw has a little bit of spice.

It looks like a mess, but it tastes like heaven.

It's really fantastic.

So, what's the Biscuit Head experience?

What do you want people to feel when they come in?

-We want people to feel comfortable.

Imagine going to your grandma's house for Sunday brunch.

We want to give them that feeling.

We want to give them that feeling of warmth, of comfort, of family.

It's Southern.

It's hospitable.

It's gonna be way too much food, you know?

-It's the South.

-It's the South.

Like, we want people to, like, be full and happy when they leave.

-At Biscuit Head, Jason has created a true Asheville favorite -- classic southern fare with a modern twist.

And just like any guest, I'm leaving full and happy.

♪♪ -I was lucky enough to visit Biscuit Head nearly a decade ago, but, Bryan, I don't think I ate the fried chicken because I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that.

-Yeah, Biscuit Head was amazing.

Jason Roy is amazing.

He's the kind of guy that Jimmy Buffett used to write songs about.

-Oh, yeah?

-Yeah.

So, today, we are going to focus on that wonderful mimosa fried chicken, but in the end, we're going to build the sandwich just like they do at Biscuit Head.

-Lovely.

-Okay, so we're going to focus on the marinade first.

So, we have 1/2 cup of sparkling white wine, and then on top of that, we're going to add 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice.

So, if you don't have prosecco or sparkling wine, you could use another dry white wine, like a pinot gris or a sauvignon blanc.

-Okay.

-And on top of that, we're going to add 2 tablespoons of grated orange zest.

We're going to add five smashed garlic cloves to our marinade, a tablespoon of table salt, and then ground coriander.

Coriander has a great way of amplifying citrus notes.

So, we're going to put some in the marinade and then use it throughout the rest of the recipe.

So, 2 teaspoons of ground coriander, and 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes just for a slight bit of heat.

-Okay.

-Alright, and we'll just whisk this together.

Alright, and that's our simple marinade right there.

-Easy.

-Alright, now we can talk about our chicken.

So, we're using boneless, skinless chicken thighs for this recipe.

I love using boneless, skinless chicken thighs for fried chicken because you could really go far and get the chicken brown without fear of drying it out or overcooking it.

-Makes sense.

-So, we're going to trim it just a little bit.

We'll just do a little bit here on the edge, but we don't have to go crazy.

So, all in, we're using about two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs here.

-Alright, so, we're just gonna submerge this into our marinade.

So, two pounds is about eight pieces of chicken or so.

So, I have chicken hands.

Do you mind covering that with plastic wrap?

We're going to let it sit for at least an hour in the refrigerator, but if you can go for a full 24 hours, it's going to be so much better.

-Sounds good.

-Our chicken has been marinating for 24 hours, and now we can make our coating.

So, in the bowl here, we have 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour.

To that, we're going to add 1 1/4 cups of cornstarch, and to that, we're going to add our friend, coriander, again -- that's 1 tablespoon of ground coriander -- 2 teaspoons of granulated garlic, 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

So, that's going to help with browning.

It's also going to make the texture of the coating nice and light and crisp.

-Okay.

-2 teaspoons of black pepper, 2 teaspoons of table salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper.

We'll just whisk that up to combine it.

So, this is just combined nicely.

And now we're going to rely on an old "Cook's Country" trick for making extra crunchy fried chicken.

We're going to add a little bit of water.

This is 3 tablespoons of water to our flour mixture, and then we're going to rub this together with our hands to create these little craggy bits.

Alright, so as we rub this together, we're looking for it to have these little bits of essentially dough balls in the flour, nice little craggy bits.

Now we're going to drop our chicken into our craggy-bit-filled flour mixture.

-Okay.

-So we're just going to take the chicken, let some of the liquid drip off of it just a bit, and we're going to drop it into our flour, and I just want to press on the chicken to make sure all that flour really sticks to it, and I flip it over a couple times.

So, just like that, and we're going to throw it onto our baking sheet here, and we'll just repeat.

Alright, so we'll continue to coat our chicken one piece at a time, and once it's all coated, we're going to drop this tray into the refrigerator, uncovered, and we're going to let it sit for a good 30 minutes or up to two hours, and during that time, the coating is really going to adhere to the chicken.

So, when we fry it, that coating doesn't peel off.

-Okay, perfect.

-Alright, our chicken has been chilling in the refrigerator for a good two hours, and you can see that the coating is a little bit more hydrated than it was when we put it in there.

So, we know that coating is gonna stick to the chicken.

-Great.

-Alright, so we have two quarts of oil here.

We're bringing it up to 350 degrees, and then we can drop in half of our chicken.

I'm using vegetable oil, but you can use peanut oil, if you like.

Just lay our chicken into the oil.

There's nothing like smell of fried chicken hitting the hot oil.

-Absolutely.

-So we're going to let this go for a good seven minutes or so, until the chicken is nicely browned and it hits at least 175 degrees.

It's okay if it tiptoes a little bit past that because, like I said, chicken thighs are very resilient and they can take a little browning.

It's been about seven minutes.

We can take a look at our chicken, bubbling away nicely here.

-Mmm.

-It's nice and golden brown, and we just want to get a quick temperature on it to make sure it's about 175 degrees.

Nailed it.

Alright.

So we could drop our beautifully fried chicken onto the paper-towel-lined side of our wire rack.

-[ Chuckles ] -And what we're gonna do here is I always like to line half the rack with paper towels and leave the other half without the paper towels.

-Exposed.

-Exposed.

-Totally exposed.

-And this is just to kind of wick away the surface oil on the chicken.

So, I'll just flip it over quickly, boom, and then I'll slide it over here so the air can circulate around it.

This will get any of the surface oil off the chicken, and we can work on frying our second batch of chicken right after we bring this oil back up to 350 degrees.

-Okay.

-Okay, our chicken has been cooling, and just as promised, we are going to build our sandwiches just like they do at Biscuit Head.

-This feels very brunchy.

-I'm all in.

-It does.

It does.

Okay, one last time with the coriander.

We're just going to sprinkle a little bit onto our finished fried chicken here on the platter.

Again, just driving home that citrus flavor that the coriander contributes.

So we have our biscuits on the plate.

-Comes pre-split.

-I love it.

-Alright, and first thing's up.

We're going to do a layer of slaw on the biscuit.

-Now, what kind of slaw do they use down there?

-They actually use a sriracha slaw, but you could use any slaw.

We're just using one of our basic slaws from our website.

And you can take your biscuit top and just drop it on there.

-Something missing.

-An egg.

And then we're going to slightly slide a poached egg right on top.

-See, I saw the poached eggs over there.

I thought you were going to put it under the biscuit top.

-No, that wouldn't be as impactful.

So this is not a pick-up-and-eat kind of sandwich.

This is a knife-and-fork sandwich.

Alright, so... -I'm taking my cue from you.

I got to watch how you eat it first.

-Alright.

So I'm just going to start cutting into it.

-Alright.

-A little slaw, a little biscuit, a little egg.

-That chicken -- unbelievable.

I just want a piece of the chicken alone.

-That orange really comes through.

-You think mimosa chicken -- a little bit of orange flavor in there, but it's really that essence, but also, the coriander tastes gorgeous.

It has that beautiful floral, citrusy note.

-Yeah.

-Well, between -- The fried chicken on its own is gorgeous, but you've got the biscuit, you've got the coleslaw, the poached egg, and all of those recipes are available on our website, so you can make this yourself at home.

Bryan, this is absolutely fried chicken perfection.

Good for brunch, good for dinner, anytime, biscuit or no biscuit.

-I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

-I loved it.

-Thank you so much.

-You're welcome.

Alright, why don't you try your own mimosa fried chicken at home?

Starts with marinating chicken thighs with a blend of orange juice, zest, and wine, mix water into cornstarch and flour for a crunchy crust, and infuse the dish at every step with ground coriander.

So from "Cook's Country" and a little bit of Asheville, it's mimosa fried chicken.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes.

Those are all on our website cookscountry.com/tv.

-Let us help with dinner tonight.

Visit our website anytime for failproof recipes, full episodes, ingredient advice, and equipment reviews.

cookscountry.com/tv.

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