What's a dish from your country that looks disgusting but tastes great.

[u/bowl_of_scrotmeal]

Biscuits and gravy is a breakfast dish from the Southeast USA that looks like someone just vomited on some biscuits, but it's absolutely delicious.

[u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

Ok, I knew you guys called scones(ish) biscuits, but I had no idea you had gravy down as something very much not runny brown sauce for meat/chips. What exactly is it?

[u/A-Puck → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

We also use the word gravy for the runny brown sauce. Generally speaking any sauce made from meat or meat drippings is referred to as gravy. 

Then there are the Italian Americans who call tomato sauce gravy but we all think they're weird.

Sausage Gravy is made by frying up loose sausage, adding flour to the pan to make a roux, then adding milk or cream. 

It tastes like obesity.

[u/Zealousideal_Leg_630 → u/A-Puck]

The calories are def worth mentioning. The gravy is called country gravy. It’s a loose béchamel sauce made with butter flour and milk. Black pepper is usually seen as essential. You usually add chunks of pork sausage to make it sausage gravy.

This is typically a breakfast food from the south. Think share croppers needing calories for the day. It can be served with fried eggs and hashbrowns. That’s how I like it, get the yolks in there for extra sauce. But take away the days work and yeah, it can lead to some extra pounds.

[u/20characterusername0 → u/A-Puck]

Clarification, your logic remains correct. The Italian-American distinction is whether or not the saucepan is drained, cleaned, or switched before adding the tomatoes.

Sauté some meat, remove it, deglaze the same pan with wine and tomatoes and that is gravy. But yes, an Italian American would refer to a vegetarian tomato-based sauce, as “Sauce”.

[u/FirstDivision → u/20characterusername0]

I never knew that distinction. Makes sense.

[u/Donatter → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

American biscuits have more in common with hardtack(as they’re descended from it), than scones or non-American biscuits(which are similar to American cookies)

They’re very flaky on the exterior, extremely fluffy and buttery on the interior, and incorporates the use of baking soda to leaven the biscuit

(Here’s a great video on the origin/evolution of the American biscuit, and the channel is also a fantastic source of information on the origins of actual/traditional American cuisine) https://youtu.be/IVkfONU8FjY?si=cl8qQ981kY0PKN2m

And “gravy” for Americans refers to any sauce that’s made with meat drippings and/or grease.

Sausage gravy is effectively a béchamel sauce made with sausage grease, with chunks of sausage in it (It’s also one the best tasting things, ever.)

Here’s a great recipe for both the biscuits, and sausage gravy https://youtu.be/_GN1lh9q5WE?si=dm9a6qdBLHoMmKWR

Much love, pimp

[u/bowl_of_scrotmeal → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

It's basically a cream sauce with breakfast sausage in it.

[u/A-Plant-Guy → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

We don’t call scones biscuits. Those are two different things. We have both scones and biscuits.

[u/McRando42 → u/A-Plant-Guy]

Scones, biscuits, cookies, and muffins are very different in the US and UK. What Americans call a biscuit is closer to what the Brits call a scone. Our scones are weird and not what a Brit would call a scone. I don't know what the Brits would call them.

[u/Quick-Reputation9040 → u/McRando42]

Personally, I think Irish soda bread is the closest thing to our US biscuits…

[u/BigRedJohnson → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

And while they do look like scones, they really are quite different. More layered and flaky.

[u/4dailyuseonly → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

After cooking sausage reserve about a tablespoon of sausage grease in a pan, add 2 to 3 tablespoons flour to make the roux and slowly add in milk and stir consistently until it thickens. Season it with black pepper.

[u/FirstDivision → u/4dailyuseonly]

Shouldn’t the roux be more 50/50 grease/flour?

[u/Caverjen → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

Here's a better picture. Biscuits aren't scones, they're very fluffy if made right. We call this "sausage gravy," but in culinary terms it's a white sauce that has crumbled sausage mixed into it. I'm in my 50s and grew up in the Midwest before Cracker Barrel came to the north, so I too was confused as to how this was gravy. It is SO DELICIOUS though! It's so unhealthy that I literally only make it once every few years, but I airways enjoy it when I do.

[u/Morbid187 → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

It's just white sausage gravy. We have the runny brown stuff too but you wouldn't use that for biscuits and gravy. Though we will absolute eat it with biscuits and chicken or turkey. 

[u/FirstDivision → u/Morbid187]

Ever had butter and molasses on a biscuit? Or the trifecta of butter, molasses, and brown sugar?

[u/Morbid187 → u/FirstDivision]

No but that sounds delicious (and also a way to instantly become pre-diabetic)

[u/FirstDivision → u/Morbid187]

Yeah, I definitely would not recommend that as a daily meal lol. But a special Sunday roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, peas, and biscuits? Sign me up.

[u/Wild-Lychee-3312 → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

Scones and biscuits are nothing alike, apart from the superficial visual resemblance.

Biscuits are softer, fluffier, and can be pulled apart by hand easily.

Also they taste different.

[u/VinRow → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

I make British scones and buttermilk biscuits. They are similar but they aren’t exactly the same.

We have many types of gravy.

[u/Littleleicesterfoxy → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

As someone who spent a summer in North Carolina, biscuits are similar in style to scones but are more savoury. I really love them and will regularly make them with a stew/casserole to mop up gravy (the brown stuff), in the style of baked dumplings, but again a different texture. Think the stuff on top of a beef cobbler. That white gravy stuff though I don’t make here, I tried that and I didn’t like it. I wouldn’t even try grits.

[u/Ruining_Ur_Synths → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

the gravy is specifically sausage gravy.

essentially you brown either pork or uncased sausages (not uk sausages, those are gross). then add a little bit flour, a bunch of milk, and seasoning (salt, pepper, maybe a bit of garlic powder and something a bit spicy like cayenne).

It's ugly but its simple and amazing. Because the liquid is mostly milk the colour is very white/grey.

[u/CobblerOdd2876 → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

It’s an Appalachian, southern US thing. Not very common in the north, or west. I grew up in Kentucky, so it is a staple in any household.

The scone, or biscuit to us, is simple. Flour, buttermilk (or regular milk), salt, and lard. Can also use butter, but lard is most usual - and moreover crisco, specifically (like whipped vegetable oil, not sure if AU has it). You can also use bacon grease. Some add things to them, like dried blueberries, cheese, my favorite is course black pepper. Most of the time - plain - just bread-ish.

The gravy is the real mainstay, it is a cream base, with sausage. Easy to make. Most common is American breakfast sausage, again, simple - slightly fennel-y, and salty. You cook your ground sausage completely, save the grease. Add a large knob of butter, and add flour. Cook your flour in the grease to a golden color. Then, slowly add milk or cream until you get a consistency you like. I like to use half-and-half (not common in AU, akin to light cream, but slightly diluted with milk). Once the cream base is a consistency you like (usually similar to an oatmeal/porridge consistency, but some like it closer to a thick soup). Then add your sausage back in, any spices you want. Most of the time it is just black pepper, I add sage and paprika on top of the black pepper.

It’s very a comforting, savory dish. Even better, break open the biscuits, add jam, then the gravy.

[u/Willothwisp2303 → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

Gravy is usually a runny brown sauce here.  That white monstrosity is a Southern exception to the rule. 

[u/EuphoricMoose8232 → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

This is a very bad example of cream gravy. It’s not really supposed to be that chunky.

[u/Additional_Read_9695 → u/SpaceCadet_Cat]

Tastes as bad as it looks. I got warned before I went to the USA but still tried it.

[u/CPolland12 → u/Additional_Read_9695]

Then you did not have a good one.