“I never thought I would have biscuits and gravy again!” my then-boyfriend-now-husband exclaimed when I offered to make it for breakfast for the first time. He’d only been in Colorado for a couple of months at that point, but I think he’d already decided he was never going back to live in Louisiana. Now it’s our special occasion breakfast- birthdays, valentine’s day, etc etc. There was no exception to this rule despite the fact that we would be spending his 30th birthday in a tent. So, this was my first attempt at “how the hell am I going to make that in the woods?”
My first screw up was forgetting to bake the biscuits before we left. Our cheap camp stove is pretty much only good for boiling water, and it’s never a sure thing that we’ll end up in a camp spot with a fire ring. Fortunately we nabbed the last one. I was also fairly new to using cast iron, so I braced everyone for the very real possibility that my attempt to make fire-baked biscuit would result in a charred mess. Somehow they came out mostly biscuit-like, with only one fatality, so I proceeded on to the gravy.
This was the part I was REALLY not sure about. Dairy in the wilderness is questionable at best, and making a roux can turn into a weapon instead of a thickener in the best of kitchens. I wrapped the biscuits in foil and put them on a hot stone to stay warm (because despite being June, it was all of 38 degrees in the morning) and fished the sausage out of our already-melting cooler. I was going to be lucky if we all came out of this experiment without food poisoning. Sausage in the pan to brown, I start to gather my gravy ingredients and…I’ve forgotten the flour. Roux is 2 things- fat and flour- and I have no flour. So, instead of biscuits and gravy, we’re now going to have biscuits and…sausage flavored milk? Yummy. My husband, who has the taste buds of a goat, doesn’t understand. It’s still basically the same thing, right? It’ll just be a little runny.
It’ll be fine, he says. Then I remembered the biscuit briquette. Biscuits are made of flour right? I cut open the charred outside, scooped out the fluffy insides, crumble and mix it into the sausage fat. Add the milk and….somehow it actually thickened up enough to pass for gravy! I added the sausage back into the sauce, grab the biscuits off the fire and voila- we have birthday biscuits and gravy!
So, what did I learn? Like Santa, make a list and check it twice BEFORE heading into the wilderness.
Wilderness Biscuits and Gravy
Serves 3-4
Lagniappe:We usually eat this with shredded hash browns cooked in bacon grease and eggs cooked over easy, but this isn’t recommended if you need to be a functional human for the rest of the day, as it has a tendency to induce a drowsy, food-coma like state.
Ingredients:
1- package of Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits
1- package of Jimmy Dean Hot Breakfast Sausage
1- tablespoon of unsalted butter plus more for buttering the biscuits to taste
2- tablespoons of all-purpose flour
2- cups of whole fat milk
Blackened Seasoning to taste (recipe follows)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Tools:
10 inch cast iron skillet with lid
Tin foil
Slotted Spoon
Sea2Summit Collapsable x-bowl with lid
Whisk
Directions:
Preheat the 10 inch cast iron pan by placing as close to the fire as possible, without sticking it straight in the flames, for 20 minutes.
Wearing oven mitts, remove the cast iron from the fire and arrange the biscuits in the skillet. Cover with the lid, and place near the fire, preferably on a flat stone. The cast iron shouldn’t be in direct contact with the fire to avoid burning the dough. Check on the biscuits after 15 minutes, and flip if the bottom of the biscuits are browned. Place cast iron back near the fire, and check again in 10 minutes. Continue checking regularly until the biscuits are browned on both sides.
Once the biscuits are baked, wrap in a double layer of aluminum foil and place near the fire (but not near enough to continue cooking) to keep them warm.
Move the cast iron to your camping stove, turn the heat to med-high. Add sausage to the pan, and break up with a fork or spatula. Continue to break up larger pieces, and cook until the sausage is cooked through and starting to brown. Move the sausage to a lidded bowl (we use Sea2Summit x-bowls, but any lidded bowl will work). You need to work quickly for this next part. Leave as much of the fat from the sausage in the pan as possible, pouring any fat from the bowl back into the pan.Reduce heat to medium. Add the tablespoon of unsalted butter to melt. Add the 2 tablespoons of flour and whisk into the fat to create a paste. **DO NOT GET THIS SUBSTANCE ON YOUR SKIN. Whisk carefully** When the mixture has formed a paste and starts to bubble, add the milk. Again, be very careful with this step, as the mixture can boil and spit when the liquid is added. Wait for any steam to clear, and then whisk vigorously. The mixture should start to thicken immediately. Reduce the heat to low or remove the cast iron from the heat completely. Add the blacked seasoning, salt and pepper to taste. Add the sausage into the gravy mixture and serve over biscuits immediately.
Blackened Seasoning
This comes directly from chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen. He uses it as a seasoning for redfish. I use it on pretty much everything, from steak to hash browns. I make a big batch, and keep it as part of our main spice set that comes on every camping adventure.
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
2 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3/4 teaspoon white pepper
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried, ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. You can add 2-1/2 teaspoons of salt to the mixture, but I prefer to leave it out of the mix, and add salt to the overall dish as needed.