• @[email protected]
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    523 hours ago

    The only Brits that would whine about that are softy southerners.

    Come up North if you like your gravy. Up here it’s strong and thick enough that the spoon stands straight up!

    • @[email protected]OP
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      219 hours ago

      Mmm, that’s how I make my sausage gravy. Got made fun of by an Appalachian guy for it being like concrete but hey, why not if you’ve got the meat, right?

      • @[email protected]
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        16 hours ago

        Oh lad, if you like your meats and gravy, you should come to the UK and visit Manchester, Liverpool, or York.

        Also everyone in the UK over hypes Greggs just because it’s such a national institution now but never mention the more tasty Pieminister because it’s not as widespread.

        Let me know if you’re ever around the Peak District and you’re more than welcome to join our family for a proper Sunday Roast Dinner with THICC gravy.

  • Bear
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    61 day ago

    Don’t worry it’s just scones and Yorkshire pudding. Nobody putting gravy on cookies and mousse.

  • @[email protected]
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    732 days ago

    Brits who complain about (American) biscuits and gravy have clearly never had (American) biscuits and gravy

    • @[email protected]
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      21 day ago

      I have had them at a pretty famous bbq place in Texas, they are tasteless and dry and the gravy is a sin that even the most watery Bisto outclassed spectacularly.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      182 days ago

      Usually, you’ll find they’ll start making fun of you before you can even explain what it is

    • metaStatic
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      152 days ago

      it’s pretty good if you can get over the fact it’s not biscuits or gravy.

      They ain’t putting brown sauce on shortbread. more like white sauce on savoury scones.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        I don’t get the petulant attitude about basic word differences. Different food and linguistic traditions exist in different places. Absolutely bonkers, right?

        Early British settlers in the United States brought with them a simple, easy style of cooking, most often based on ground wheat and warmed with gravy. Most were not wealthy men and women, and so it was a source of cheap nutrition.

        A very similar practice was also popular once with the Royal Navy as hard, flour-based biscuits would keep for long journeys at sea but would also become so difficult to chew that they had to be softened up. These were first introduced in 1588 to the rations of ships and found their way into the New World by the 1700s at the latest.

        The biscuit emerged as a distinct food type in the early 19th century, before the American Civil War. Cooks created a cheaply produced addition for their meals that required no yeast, which was expensive and difficult to store. With no leavening agents except the bitter-tasting pearlash available, beaten biscuits were laboriously beaten and folded to incorporate air into the dough which expanded when heated in the oven causing the biscuit to rise. In eating, the advantage of the biscuit over a slice of bread was that it was harder, and hence kept its shape when wiping up gravy in the popular combination biscuits and gravy.

        American biscuits and gravy are direct descendants of British biscuits and gravy. And American biscuits are not scones

        • @[email protected]
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          2 days ago

          With how commonly American biscuits are compared to scones, im curious what British scones are like, because the scones I’m familiar with have a very different texture from American biscuits.

          • @[email protected]
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            92 days ago

            They’re often flakey like biscuits, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. I also think of scones more as desserts than used for something savory.

      • @[email protected]
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        192 days ago

        Or it is biscuits and gravy, and the people who think that phrase means brown sauce on cookies are wrong.

    • @[email protected]
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      41 day ago

      It’s scones covered in a white sauce built on sausage meat roux. Nothing wrong with it, but not much right with it either, it’s just calories.

      • @[email protected]
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        151 day ago

        Not scones, American biscuits. They’re different. Flaky, buttery, not sweet. And if there’s “not much right with it” then you had a crappy gravy without enough grease and pepper.

        • @[email protected]
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          51 day ago

          Lmao you can tell someone is American when they say “if it didn’t taste good you just need more grease”

        • @[email protected]
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          41 day ago

          Probably! I was drawing a comparison for other readers, they’re closer to a shortcrust pastry in how they’re made. Savoury scones are a thing, by the way - usually made with a bit of cheese.

    • @Worx
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      152 days ago

      We made some for the first time about a month ago and it was pretty good. I have some ideas for improving next time, but it was good enough to be worth making again.

      I did feel very silly calling it biscuits and gravy though. The “biscuits” are more like dumplings or something, made from crumbly dough, not actually biscuits (aka cookies or crackers for Americans, I think). The “gravy” is also not gravy, it’s a thick sauce with vegetable lumps in. Ours was mostly tasteless but flavoured with thyme for a nice almost aftertaste. I was worried when I was cooking the sauce, but with a whole dinners-worth it was a really nice, subtle flavour. It lets the herbs and vegetables shine through.

      I was looking up a recipe to jog my memory for the sauce, and apparently this is a breakfast food? Wtf is wrong with you, all of America? This was like a nice hearty dinner lol. What a bizarre way to start your day. Anyway, thanks for reading my review of biscuits and gravy that I don’t remember why I wrote any more 😂

      • @[email protected]
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        12 hours ago

        FYI biscuits back in the 1700s were something between the US and UK biscuit in terms of size and softness. UK went thin, hard, and sweet as time passed. US went big, soft, and savory.

        Biscuits and gravy are a classic breakfast food but only when you want a hardy breakfast. It’s closer to a full English breakfast as to when you would eat it.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        Dafuq gravy did you have with vegetables? It’s a heavily peppered bechamel, starting from a sausage fat roux… and to spite the French a bit more we use black pepper.

        • @Worx
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          42 days ago

          Vegetarian? We did use black pepper in ours but not that much. I usually like quite spicy food whereas the other person I was cooking for does not, so it’s possible I didn’t put as much pepper in as most people would. It’s also possible that I just didn’t notice the pepper as much because I usually like eating chillies with my food.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 day ago

              You can get a fair bit of heat from fresh black pepper, piperine activates the same receptor as capsaicin. I can tolerate a lot more spice than most, but it’s definitely spicy. Or it kind of bridges “spiced” and “spicy”.

            • @Worx
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              52 days ago

              Haha ikr. It can be very challenging to cook a meal that we both enjoy, sometimes. I still have a very vivid memory of having a friend cook for me when I was around 18 or so and they made an arrabiata or something similar, a slightly spicy pasta sauce. It amazed me how tasty food could be because my mum is really not a good cook (an excellent baker though :) )

          • @[email protected]
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            222 days ago

            If you’re going for vegetarian that’s fine and dandy but I think a preponderance of the flavor comes from the sausage fat. I don’t think you can make a fair comparison from what you’ve described. The gravy is definitely not bland.

            Also that’s what biscuits are here. They are heaven.

            • @Worx
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              32 days ago

              Ah, that would explain it. Maybe next time I’ll see if there’s a way to replicate that sausage fat flavour because that does sound good

              • @[email protected]
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                21 day ago

                I’m British and have met two people like this in my life, one of which is American. Given the working class stereotype of ordering the “hottest thing on the menu” at an Indian restaurant, there’s some serious doublethink going on here.

      • @[email protected]
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        202 days ago

        Okay… so… dear god please try again? lol.

        If you want American biscuits for biscuits and gravy they should be fluffy and almost crumbly. You can just get the non-flaky stuff from pillsberry (theirs are vegan as a plus) in the states.

        The gravy needs to have a “sausage” base, if you’re going vegetarian I suggest getting either impossible sausage (the tube not the patties) or field roasts Apple maple sausages (but then you gotta use a fuckload more pepper and more oil). Cool the sausage first, break it up, use its fat (usually also pour in some more oil if you don’t cook with a lot) make a roux (by adding flour to the fat. You can leave the sausage bits in, break up the links/patties if you didn’t use the tube stuff) add more pepper than you think should exist in food, then some oat milk. Let it cook until it re thickens enough to coat a spoon. Salt to taste. Serve on broken up biscuits.

        If it’s bland, you need more pepper, or better “sausage” or more of it. If the carb in carb sauce does not leave you in a food coma it was also probably not right.

          • @[email protected]
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            52 days ago

            Honestly one of the saddest things about being vegan/vegetarian is not being able to order biscuits and gravy on menus when I see it. Still can make it when I want at least, but it’s painful when I’m like oooh biscuits…. Ah fuck.

            My suggestion to anyone who thinks being vegetarian is impossible is to go to an Indian restaurant and order from the vegetarian menu, cuz god damn that shit is wonderful.

            • @[email protected]
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              42 days ago

              That feeling is interesting. I don’t miss meat. I don’t want sausage. I miss trying someone else’s variation of something I like. Rubens are what I miss most in that way but biscuits and gravy are up there.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        51 day ago

        It is a little heavy for breakfast for my tastes, yes. But it was originally used by people doing hard farm labor during the day who needed the calories and I do not at all fit that description so I respect the tradition even if I don’t follow it.

        Vegetable chunks in the gravy seems a little unusual but I totally see it fitting the dish if you don’t want to make a separate vegetable side. But here’s my little recipe, passed down my family for god knows how long. They didn’t give me much, but they gave me this:

        1. Take breakfast sausage in ground form. If you only have links and you want to replicate the original tradition, you can remove the casing to get at the sausage inside. Or just cut up the links if you don’t want to waste the casing. If you don’t have access to breakfast sausage or it’s too expensive, this is the approximate spice mix to use in conjunction with ground pork: sage, thyme, rosemary, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, red pepper flakes, coriander, garlic powder.
        2. Cook breakfast sausage until you have toasty bits on the outside. Coat the sausage with flour, then cook for as long as you can without the flour burning. Then add milk, cook and stir until flour is incorporated with the milk into a sauce. Ratios are very forgiving, traditionally you’d use more milk and flour to get more mileage out of expensive meat.

        Biscuits are also hella easy. Break cold butter (or whatever fat source you can afford, but not liquid oils) into chunks, mix into flour. Add buttermilk and baking soda, or milk and baking powder, then bake at 170 C until golden brown. Ratios are very forgiving as well.

      • Drusas
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        172 days ago

        There are no vegetables in biscuits and gravy.

        • cobysev
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          152 days ago

          If it’s not a thick white gravy with chunks of sausage in it, it’s not biscuits and gravy.

          • @[email protected]
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            9 hours ago

            what about a dark brown gravy with bits of sausage and onion? That’s what I commonly see here in New England. Tastes about the same as the white gravy (I’ve had that at Texas Roadhouse and similar resaurants) but it’s less creamy and more oily.

            • cobysev
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              18 hours ago

              Definitely not; biscuits and gravy is a unique kind of breakfast meal, with it’s own gravy recipe. Regular brown gravy (or the white peppercorn gravy) can’t substitute.

              That’s what I commonly see here in New England.

              Interestingly enough, I’m in New England right now, visiting my mother for Christmas. I’m on my way back to my home in the Midwest this morning, though.

              • @[email protected]
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                28 hours ago

                thanks for the clarification. didn’t realize till now that Biscuits and Gravy would be different from biscuit with gravy.

        • @Worx
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          32 days ago

          Haha so I’m learning

      • @[email protected]
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        1 day ago

        In addition to the previous gravy comments, namely that you absolutely must use some crumbly sausage textured protein and the associated fat, I’ve got something else to mention.

        Perfect crumbly biscuits are so good and also so tricky to make, that I feel like there’s a slim chance you nailed it the first time, so keep trying.

        I struggle to nail it and I’ve been attempting on and off for decades. What makes it difficult is:

        if you over-work them (stirring more than ~12 times) and the ingredients become homogenous, the texture is ruined.
        They’re still edible but nothing like the real deal.

        If the ingredients get warm then the butter will melt and once again ruin the texture.

        If you cut the biscuits wrong (e.g. twisting) the sides will “smear” together and they won’t rise right, ruining the texture again.

        A perfect (buttermilk/crumbly) biscuit should be fluffy, crumbly, golden brown on the outside, white on the inside and have 10-20 little yellow butter “pearls” dispersed throughout it, something like tiny blueberries in a blueberry muffin.

        Even knowing all that, I still find myself failing often and chasing that 5-10% of times when they came out perfect. That said, I’m shit at baking bread for some reason, just cursed it seems. Other people (grandmas notably) can just fucking nail it every time.

        The gravy should be pretty easy: start with a generous amount of fat, lightly brown a little flour to make a slurry, add milk little by little until it’s thick like a chowder, add black pepper and “sausage” crumbles. You can always add more milk, NEVER ADD MORE FAT

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        Break up a breakfast sausage in the white sauce along with plenty of pepper. That will liven up it’s taste. White sauce on its own is literally just a flour, butter, and milk, reduction. So yeah it’s pretty bland on it’s own. Some people also use Cayenne Pepper and/or cook bacon in the pan first to incorporate the grease into the sauce.

        And yeah this food was meant to be eaten early by workers and get them to lunch. Especially explorers, sailors, and soldiers. People who burn a lot of calories.

        • @Worx
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          22 days ago

          What I mean is, in the UK we would call a biscuit either a crunchy sweet snack thing (aka cookie for America) or something to eat with cheese for lunch (aka cracker for America)

          • TheTechnician27
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            22 days ago

            Yeah, I knew about that difference; I just completely misread your comment and thought you were trying to say that these weren’t biscuits by American standards. My bad.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 day ago

        Is there a bun on that? If not it’s just a Salisbury steak which I assume is the Japanese influence creeping in. Never quite understood why they like hamburger steak so much. I always associate it with frozen dinners.

        • @[email protected]
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          324 hours ago

          I like Salisbury steak but loco moco def feels different to eat. Hamburger steak usually isn’t served with gravy in my experience thus far but Hong Kong has amazing steak with black pepper gravy.

    • ✺roguetrick✺
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      1 day ago

      Ketchup is just tomato gravy anyway. A sauce made by thickening a reduction of something high in glutamate with cornstarch. It’s more of a gravy than chip beef gravy, which is a more basic roux. Only difference is fat content, but that’s why it’s paired with mayo.

  • @[email protected]
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    232 days ago

    This should be a 3-way with Canadians putting gravy on fries.

    Haven’t tried gravy on pudding but I’m sure it’s as great as the other two.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      71 day ago

      It doesn’t work with the joke though: Americans use the word “pudding” to refer to something sweet while Brits use the word “biscuit” to refer to something sweet. Fries aren’t sweet in either of the two opposing dialects. So both should be able to see the appeal

      • @[email protected]
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        62 days ago

        I wasn’t being sarcastic. I like both poutine and biscuits and gravy, and I’m pretty sure gravy on pudding is good too. They all sound off-putting if you don’t know what they are, though.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 days ago

      You know the Brits do that too.

      And if you fancy a moment of horror,look up what a Wigan Kebab is.

  • Cruxifux
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    102 days ago

    It’s hard to go wrong with gravy. But I’m Canadian, we don’t use whatever you guys call biscuits. We use French fries and cheese.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      31 day ago

      I got hooked on poutine after my first visit to Canada, made my own for weeks afterwards. 10/10 no notes

      • Cruxifux
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        31 day ago

        Bro you can add whatever you want to poutine and it will be good. It’s damn near impossible to ruin that dish.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        31 day ago

        I think I’ve seen chorizo poutine as an option the one time I visited Canada, in Niagara falls I believe it was. But I only had time to try the classic, and also I can’t remember if it was Mexican style chorizo or Spanish style chorizo or something else

    • @[email protected]
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      32 days ago

      Yes and we Canadians like browned gravy from roasts. White sausage gravy isn’t really a thing here.

      • Cruxifux
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        21 day ago

        I cannot believe there is such a thing as white gravy. It sounds like it looks like jizz.

    • ArtieShaw
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      12 days ago

      I’m not a fan of the white gravy that goes over biscuits, but I’m on totally board with the gravy that goes with your fries. I will admit to some initial skepticism.

        • ArtieShaw
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          220 hours ago

          It’s a bilious looking concoction made from a sausage base. It’s made from cooked breakfast sausage, butter, flour, and milk. MILK.

          I guess one could compare it to a bechamel if one were feeling generous.

          https://selfproclaimedfoodie.com/country-sausage-gravy/

          Red-eye gravy is another aberrant gravy from the US south. Never tried it, but I’m sure there’s some reason it exists.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 day ago

    Isn’t gravy that thick brown sauce you eat with turkey? If that’s the case both belong in a mental institution.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 day ago

      That’s one kind. The kind Americans put on biscuits is white and very thick. It is a mixture of sausage grease, flour, milk, and shitloads of black pepper.

      Texturally, they’re a nightmare but the flavor is excellent.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        119 hours ago

        very thick If you can afford it. In the old days lean years meant thin gravy

        Texturally, they’re a nightmare

        I’ll forgive you just this once. It may take some getting used to but it has no equal