On Thursday night when Nate and I were both home with no special plans for the evening, our intentionally low-key dinner morphed into a delicious feast.
We only had a few prerequisites for the dinner: use the chicken from Griggstown that had been defrosting in the fridge since Tuesday, and make it easy, and relatively quick. Nate quickly decided to braise the chicken in a dutch oven with onions, red wine, and homemade veggie broth, which would free up our time to work on the sides.
But, all we had was asparagus. And we also had a ton of ramps (some of which I found in the wild while hiking in the Poconos)! After a little research, Nate uncovered this delicious recipe from epicurious.com- buttermilk biscuits with ramps and coriander. What better combo than chicken and biscuits!?! It might be my PA-Dutch heritage, but that sounded heavenly. So naturally, we made it happen:
Buttermilk & Ramp Biscuits with Coriander
Adapted from Bon Appétit | April 2009
3/4 cup chilled buttermilk
(or substitute sour milk- 1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup milk)
3/4 cup thinly sliced trimmed ramps (bulbs, stems, and green tops)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Generous 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, cracked
Preheat oven to 425°F. Measure buttermilk in oversized liquid measuring cup, then mix the ramps in with the buttermilk.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper in food processor. Then, add chilled butter to processor; using on/off turns, cut in butter until fine meal forms. If you don’t have a large food processor, you can probably cut the butter by hand with two knives or a dough/pastry cutter. Just be sure that the butter stays in little clumps and doesn’t melt.
Transfer flour mixture to medium bowl. Add buttermilk mixture and coriander; stir until dough forms. Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface and press out to 7-inch round, about 1/2 inch thick. The dough will be sticky, so be sure to use enough flour.
If you have a biscuit cutter, use that. If you don’t, lightly form biscuit-sized rounds and flatten to 1/2 inch thick. It’s okay if they look a bit scraggly. Gather the rest of the dough scraps; press out to 1/2-inch thickness and cut out additional rounds. Transfer dough rounds to baking sheet- a silpat or parchment works nicely, but you don’t need it. Bake biscuits until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool, until they’re slightly warm, eat and enjoy! (Don’t try to rush the cooling process- those ramps are HOT- I learned that lesson the hard way… but it was still worth it!)
