Ham, Cheddar and Scallion Biscuits
Y’all. This is a ham biscuit. But with the ham already in the biscuit. Plus cheddar cheese and scallions. And just so you know, the secret to a good biscuit is hot oven, cold butter. So we cut out these biscuits and popped them in the freezer uncooked. Then baked them from frozen. Coldest butter possible! Sure, you can make them and cook them right away, but we are alllll about having things handy. So Easter morning you just pop these in the oven from the freezer.
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter cubed
1 1/8 cup buttermilk
6 oz finely minced country ham (* If you live north of the Mason Dixon line and can’t find country ham, Amazon can get it to you by the next day)
1/3 cup scallions, white and light green part, sliced very thin
2 cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 whisked egg and 1 Tablespoon of water, combined for egg wash
In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add chilled, cubed butter into the flour mixture with your fingers, or use a pastry blender until broken down into pea sized pieces. Add the ham scallions and cheddar and gently mix until incorporated. Pour buttermilk into the mixture and gently mix in with a wooden spoon.
Flour your surface and hands and gently combine with hands. It will be sticky. Add more flour as needed.
Dump dough onto floured surface and, using your hands, pat dough into an 8 x 10 rectangle about 3/4 inch thick.
Dip a 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter into flour and cut as many biscuits as you can from the dough. Using square biscuit cutters will allow you to get more buiscuits without having to re-roll out the dough.
Now is the choose-your-own-adventure portion of the recipe…
Option one: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place the biscuits on a greased baking sheet and brush with egg wash. Bake for 20 minutes turning pan halfway through. Serve warm.
Option two: place the biscuits on a baking sheet and pop into freezer for about 10 minutes. Once hard place them in a Ziploc bag for future use. Cooks as above but add 10 minutes to cooking time.
