GrillinFools
Biscuits and Brisket Gravy? Let’s back up a few decades. I remember the first time I tried biscuits and gravy. We didn’t make it in my house prior to that. My dad, the second Grillin’ Fool, made bacon and eggs when he cooked the big breakfast on Sundays (the one day a week he didn’t work) and my mom generally made pancakes/French toast/cinnamon toast when she cooked it. As a child, we went to a restaurant for breakfast and someone ordered a side of biscuits and gravy and I had a bite. It was absolutely magical. The ultimate breakfast comfort food. Soon after this dish was added to the Sunday rotation at our house.
How to Upgrade Biscuits and Gravy
That was sometime in the 1980’s. Fast forward about forty years and in my current home, I tend to cook bacon and eggs (and potato cakes) when I make the big breakfast while my wife does panny’s or waffles when she cooks the big breakfast. So my kids hadn’t had biscuits and gravy until not long ago. My second oldest had a culinary epiphany one summer on our family vacation in Northern Michigan where more than 20 of us go every year. The third Grillin’ Fool, Tom, makes his phenomenal biscuits and gravy one morning every year. My son tried it and now it is absolutely his favorite dish, no matter the meal. Ever since he fell in love with this succulent southern breakfast dish, I’ve been thinking about how to put my own spin on biscuits and gravy. Last year, when we did this Beef Tallow Brisket recipe, I realized I needed to add brisket and considered the beef tallow, but wasn’t sure on the latter. But then we did the Beef Tallow French Fries and I realized that the South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow is not a one trick pony. More like a magic elixir that improves all manner of dishes. I even used it to make potato cakes recently (I’ll have a recipe on the tater cakes soon enough). I also used tallow to make grilled cheese sandos! So brisket and wagyu beef tallow became my spin on biscuits and gravy.
Scroll down for the step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions.
Biscuits and Brisket Gravy Ingredients
- 1/2 cup South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow
- 1 tablespoon smoked salt (substitute coarse salt)
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh cracked black pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh cracked white pepper
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 4 cups milk
- 1.5 cups chopped brisket
- 4.5 cups Bisquick
- 1.33 cups milk
- 1 lb sliced brisket
- 12 eggs (optional)
This is a hybrid recipe with some of it cooked out on the grill and some cooked inside.
How to Make Brisket Gravy
We will begin with our stove and turning the big burner onto medium heat and placing a cast iron skillet on the burner. It will take a few minutes for that iron to heat up, but that’s just part of the charm. The older I get the more I realize that cast iron cookware is simply friggin’ magic.
Once the cast iron pan is up to temp, time to bust out the magic elixir known as wagyu beef tallow:
Add in the salt, in this case some smoked finishing salt. Feel free to use coarse salt:
And the black and white pepper:
Why cook with more than one type of pepper?
Because each type of pepper, whether black, white, red, green, pink, etc, hits a different spot on the tongue. Thus, using more than one kind will make for a more nuanced flavor profile.
Then add the flour:
Grab a whisk and get to whisking:
This part will take a little while. A good 10 minutes. The goal is to get a nice a brown (also known as a roux). It will bubble, just keep stirring every couple minutes:
Eventually, it will start to brown, but it’s still not ready:
I’m good with mixing the milk in when it is this brown, but some folks brown it up even more:
Add the milk a little at a time and keep whisking, and expect a lot of steam at first:
And now we have some beef tallow gravy. Time to get to work on the brisket.
If you’re anything like me, there’s no such thing as leftover brisket. As much as you try to make extra, it always seems to disappear. So I went to a friend’s BBQ joint called Super Smokers and picked up a pound and a half of brisket. Super Smokers vac sealed the brisket and I placed the whole thing in pot of water and set it to a simmer to warm it back up and retain the juices:
I chopped up about a cup and a half of the brisket:
Then I added it to the gravy:
Then whisk the brisket through the gravy:
Set the gravy to a very low simmer. Also, I put the brisket into a resealable plastic bag and back in the hot water.
One note here, cooking a recipe and filming cooking a recipe take vastly different amounts of time. Our gravy kept getting too thick while we documented the rest of this recipe. That’s no problem. If it starts to look more like wall spackle than gravy, simply add a little more milk to bring back that thick, creamy consistency
Scratch Made Biscuits Directions
Now let’s get to work on the biscuits. You can use pre-made biscuits, but we went ahead and made them from scratch. I’d never done this before, but it was soooooo easy. So easy that I had my 9 year old do it to prove the point. I know you are picturing flour every where including the ceiling when I mentioned having a 9 year old do it. Check his shirt through the entire set of pics below.
Combine the Bisquick and milk in a bowl and work together until it forms a dough. This is a double recipe of biscuits and made about 14 biscuits. Then we laid the dough on something called the Dough Mat from Dough EZ with these red spacers on the side and folded the other side of the mat over the top and rolled out the dough to the exact thickness of those spacers:
Pull the top of the Dough Mat back and we have our perfectly rolled dough and my grand mothers biscuit cutter that is probably half a century old or older:
See any flour? Nope. No mess at all.
Also, dad had a cast iron biscuit pan. Feel free to use a regular cast iron pan, or any oven safe pan. I set my pellet cooker at 450F and put the biscuits in for 9-11 minutes:
When the biscuits are just about done, I recommend slicing up some of that brisket and fry up some eggs. Biscuits and gravy don’t have to have an egg involved, but I’m a yolk junkie and decided to add a couple to this:
When the biscuits were browned on top, after 10 minutes in the smoker, it was time to assemble our dish:
And here’s a very proud 9 year old who just made his first batch of biscuits (and a proud papa who took this pic):
Take one of those biscuits and divide it in half and start layering the gravy, brisket, more gravy and optional eggs on top:
-Eggs Optional-
And I mean it when I say I love me some yolk:
Or you can just go with a biscuit and some brisket gravy:
Biscuits and Brisket Gravy Summary
I’m just going to say it. This is the best biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had. Brisket is a game changer in chili and is also a huge game changer for gravy. And the wagyu beef tallow is way better than any other fat you could use for the gravy. It’s just so creamy and clean. It’s not overly rich like a sausage fat would be. It’s less of a punch to the taste buds and more of a hug to them. Absolutely amazing. One other point here. The biscuits didn’t take on any smoke flavor. That was unexpected. Porous dough/bread usually eagerly sucks in the smoke, but they just weren’t on the smoker long enough. These could’ve just as easily been done in the oven and the ones we did in the oven browned a little more:
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.
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Thank you
I partnered with South Chicago Packing on this recipe
Biscuits and Brisket Gravy
Equipment
Ingredients
Gravy
- ½ cup South Chicago Packing Wagyu Beef Tallow
- 1 tablespoon Smoked salt Substitute coarse salt
- ½ tablespoon Fresh cracked black pepper
- ½ tablespoon Fresh cracked white pepper
- ¾ cup All purpose flour
- 4 cups Milk
- 1.5 cups Chopped brisket
Scratch Made Biscuits
- 4.5 cups Bisquick
- 1.33 cups Milk
- Spray oil
Plating
- 1 pound Sliced brisket
- 12 Eggs
Instructions
Gravy
- Place cast iron pan on to a medium burner on the stove
- Once the cast iron skillet comes up to temperature, drop in the wagyu beef tallow to melt
- Pour in the salt, pepper and flour
- Whisk the flour until the roux turns a honey brown color
- Slowly pour in the milk, continuing to whisk to blend into gravy
- Once all the milk is in and the gravy is thick and creamy, chop the brisket and add to the skillet
- Put the brisket into a resealable plastic bag and put into simmering water
- Whisk the brisket through the gravy
- Set the heat to a low simmer
Scratch Made Biscuits
- Combine the Bisquick and milk in a mixing bowl
- Work the milk through the Bisquick until a dough is formed
- Roll the dough out and cut into biscuits
- Lubricate the biscuit pan with the spray oil
- Place the biscuits in the biscuit pan
- Set the smoker or oven to 450F and place the biscuits inside for 9-11 minutes until the tops brown
Plating
- Slice the warmed brisket
- Split the biscuits
- Top with gravy
- Top with sliced brisket
- Top with more gravy
- (Optional) add an egg or two on top
Scott Thomas
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