I don’t know about you – and your pantry – but I don’t have lard anywhere in it. I suppose I eat some now and then when I go to our local Mexican restaurants because in the Mexican cuisine, lard plays a terribly important part. But to cook with it? Well, I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve purchased the stuff. I think I bought it once when we were making tamales years and years ago.
Therefore, I substituted unsalted butter to make these. And yes, they were just delicious that way. I mean, what’s there not to like about fluffy biscuits with bacon and red onion in it? But as I was [later] reading the cookbook this came from, Biscuit Bliss: 101 Foolproof Recipes for Fresh and Fluffy Biscuits in Just Minutes
So here’s the scoop – this is what James Villas says in his book about biscuits:
“Lard (the rendered fat of hogs), vegetable shortening, butter and margarine are the principal fats used to make biscuits and each has its own distinctive properties. Their function is not only to impart flavor, but, most important, to grease the proteins presents in the flour so that the liquids cannot activate the gluten, to separate the flakes in dough by melting between starchy layers during baking: and to thus tenderize (shorten) the overall texture of the biscuits.
There can be no doubt that lard, which is 100% fat, produces the fleeciest, most tender biscuits since it has the greatest shortening power and maintains the biscuit’s texture at all temperatures. (Curiously enough, however, pure lard contains considerably less cholesterol than butter.)
Next best for fluffiness is vegetable shortening [Crisco], constituted of both animal and vegetable oils and today the most popular fat for making biscuits. Butter and margarine are both richer in flavor, but since they are only 80% fat, they have less shortening power than lard or vegetable shortening and thus yield a heavier texture (especially butter, because of its milk solids.
The ultimate biscuit, of course, would have the combined flaky tenderness produced by lard, the fluffiness from vegetable shortening, and the rich flavor of butter. Mixing fats is always an option, but be warned that it can be risky if you’re not familiar (through experience) with how each behaves. “
And no, I don’t know about that last sentence – I’m not familiar, other than with my hands-on years of making biscuits and scones, how each of the fats behave when making biscuits. I’ve never taken a biscuit recipe and made it in small batches, side by side, with butter in one, lard in another and vegetable shortening in the third. I suppose I could/should, but I’m not a test kitchen, so I never would think to try that. For years, in my early cooking, I just used Bisquick. Because that’s what my mother did. And the resulting biscuits were good enough, I suppose. I must have branched out at some point about 30 years ago when I didn’t have a box of Bisquick on the shelf. And discovered that I liked home made biscuits better.
Interestingly, Bisquick uses vegetable shortening in their box mix. All that said, I guess I should buy some lard and store it in our garage refrigerator for those rare occasions when I might use it. I’d already made these with butter when I read the preface about fats. If I had (well, at 6 pm when I need to get dinner on the table, do I spend 20 minutes reading a book’s preface? uhm, no!), I’d have used the non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening I have in my pantry. Maybe I should make these biscuits again using lard and see if there’s a difference. I used red onion – because that’s the only kind of onion I had on my pantry shelf. Yellow or white would work just fine – even green onions would work just as well too. I added the chives, just because I have an abundance in my kitchen garden right now. I’m suffering from a wicked spring cold as I write this (last week), and on our dinner menu numerous times in the last week was soup. Besides, with this cold spring we’ve been having, we’re still enjoying hot soups around our house and these made a great side.
Yankee Bacon and Onion Scones
Recipe By: Adapted slightly from Biscuit Bliss, by James Villas
Serving Size: 12
NOTES: If desired, you can mix up a small egg with about 2 tsp of water and use that as a glaze on top of each scone, which will give it a shiny crust.
3 strips bacon — lean
1 medium onion — minced
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly-ground black pepper — to taste
1/4 cup lard — chilled, cut into bits (or unsalted butter)
2 tablespoons chives — minced [my addition]
1 cup buttermilk
1. In a skillet, fry the bacon over moderate heat till crisp and drain on paper towels. Add the onion to the skillet, stir till softened, about 2 minutes, and drain on paper towels. Crumble the bacon finely.
2. Preheat the oven to 425° degrees. Grease a large baking sheet and set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pepper, add the lard, and work it in with your fingertips till the mixture is crumbly. Add the crumbled bacon, chives and onion and stir till well blended. Add the buttermilk and stir just till a sticky dough forms. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface, knead 8 to 10 times, and pat into a rectangle 3/4-inch thick. With a sharp knife, cut the rectangle in half lengthwise, and cut each half crosswise into 6 long narrow triangles. Arrange the triangles on the prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart. [I cut circles, but cut them however you’d like them to be.]
4. Bake in the center of the oven till just golden, 12 to 15 minutes.
Per Serving: 136 Calories; 5g Fat (36.4% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 18g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 6mg Cholesterol; 311mg Sodium.
A year ago: Jicama Slaw
Two years ago: Pacific Rim Shrimp Pasta Salad
Three years ago: An essay I wrote about the Myth about Searing Meat
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