Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook: Breakfast, Brunch and Beyond from New York's Favorite Neighborhood Restaurant

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Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook

Little, Brown and Company

1

· BISCUITS ·

It all started with the buttermilk biscuit. Anyone worth his or her Brooklyn roots knows that the best biscuits in New York, if not the country, were found at the legendary Lundy’s Restaurant in Sheepshead Bay—a.k.a. the family seafood destination of the Northern Hemisphere.

With 2,800 seats back in the 1950s and ’60s, Lundy’s was to Brooklyn what baseball is to America. Lundy’s seemed as big as two ball fields to Neil, who, as a kid, made a monthly pilgrimage there on a bus from Flatbush with his entire family because they did not own a car.

Lundy’s was most famous for its shore (seafood) dinners, its long, snaking lines (especially on Sunday nights), and, best of all, its flaky buttermilk biscuits. Jamaican waiters dressed in crisp white coats made their way around the tiled-floor dining room each night with hot biscuits piled on plates and wax-paper-wrapped pats of butter sliding around. The minute they hit the table, those biscuits were devoured, with requests for more broadcast across the crowded room (some of the loudest from the Kleinbergs themselves).

When it reopened in 1995, after sixteen years of dormancy, Neil was asked to launch the new Lundy’s kitchen as executive chef. It was a dream job, and he could not wait to re-create the restaurant’s magic.

His first roadblock came with the recipes, which—he quickly learned—were passed down by its black southern cooks through oral tradition. Not one cup, one ounce, one teaspoon, was recorded on paper. Neil would have to replicate every morsel from memory, beginning with those beloved biscuits. To start, he reconjured their feeling and flavor: small and soft, not too browned on top, fluffy on the inside, slightly crunchy on the outside. The biscuits needed to taste buttery, salty, a touch sugary, and have a starchy quality that held up when a pat of butter slid between two warm halves.

Neil began his research by reading celebrated cookbook writers, everyone from Fannie Farmer to Maida Heatter to Edna Lewis. He tinkered with different flavors, ratios of shortening and butter, regular milk versus buttermilk. Next he tracked down an artisanal flour through the White Lily company in Tennessee, which sold a seminal soft winter wheat.

After weeks of testing, baking, and tasting, he finally found The One, a recipe born of that wonderful flour and a technique of mixing that made those biscuits remarkably flaky and melt-in-your-mouth good. For a child of Brooklyn—a son of Lundy’s—it was like reinventing the wheel.

And just like that, one perfect biscuit became eight thousand a day. There were two reach-in refrigerators equipped with pan-slides dedicated solely to the sheet pans with biscuits. Every morning, twenty-five trays on each side of both fridges were filled with punched-out mini biscuits ready to bake.

Naturally, when we opened Clinton St.’s oven doors, Neil’s first thought was to serve the biscuits he perfected back at Lundy’s. He didn’t want to serve bagels or croissants. The biscuit would be the ideal morning staple: the platform on which Neil could rest scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, his own tomato jam—and, as it turned out, his Brooklyn pride.

BUTTER MILK Biscuits

MAKES 6 BISCUITS

2 CUPS all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

2 TABLESPOONS baking powder

1½ TABLESPOONS sugar

¼ TEASPOON salt

3 TABLESPOONS unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

3 TABLESPOONS vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into small chunks

¾ CUP buttermilk

These biscuits can be prepared and then rested overnight for baking the next day.

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2 Place the 2 cups flour and other dry ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until combined.

3 Add the butter and shortening to the bowl and mix on low speed until the dough reaches a crumbly texture. The butter and shortening should be the size of peas.

4 Turn off the mixer and add the buttermilk to the bowl all at once. Mix very briefly on low speed until the dough just comes together (this should take less than 10 seconds).

5 Turn the dough onto a floured surface and form it into a ball. Lightly knead the dough two or three times until combined.

6 You can bake the biscuits the next day. Dust a sheet pan and the top of the dough with flour and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap, overnight. Then bring the dough back to room temperature.

7 Pat out the dough to a ¾- to 1-inch thickness. Shape the dough into a rectangle, making the sides high. Using a 2-inch-round biscuit cutter, cut out 4 biscuits. Place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and dust with a sprinkling of flour. Gather the dough scraps and, using your hands, tuck in the bottom of the dough so there are no wrinkles, much like making a bread roll. Form the remaining dough into another rectangle with high sides and cut out 2 more biscuits.

8 Place the pan in the preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown and cooked through. Halfway through the baking process, rotate the pan for even browning.

9 Serve warm with butter and our Raspberry Jam (page 160).

RESTAURANT TRICK If you have a convection oven, bake for 15 to 17 minutes at 325°F. A convection oven circulates air to bake items such as cookies, biscuits, and cakes faster and gives a nicer color to both baked and roasted items.

COMMON MISTAKE Do not twist the biscuit cutter in the dough. Cut the biscuits by pushing the cutter directly into the dough and then lifting the cutter. If you twist the cutter, the biscuits may not rise.

NOTE You can make these biscuits by hand, without a mixer. Mix the butter and shortening into the dry ingredients with your fingertips to achieve a crumbly texture and use your hands to combine the buttermilk into the dough. Make sure to powder your hands with flour if the dough gets too sticky.

What to do with that extra buttermilk? Make our Fried Chicken on page 124, the Onion Rings on page 129, or Buttermilk Streusel Coffee Cake, page 43.

BUTTER MILK Biscuit Sandwiches

MAKES 2 SANDWICHES

2 Buttermilk Biscuits (page 17)

4 TEASPOONS unsalted butter, plus 1 TABLESPOON

3 large eggs, whisked together

¼ CUP shredded cheddar cheese

4 bacon SLICES, cooked, crisp and well drained

2 HEAPING TABLESPOONS

Tomato Jam (page 163)

When we first opened Clinton St., Neil wanted a breakfast sandwich made with the biscuit, but it was so big, fluffy, and flaky that he couldn’t fix a proper sandwich. Instead he had to make it open-faced. He decided to scramble perfect eggs and lay them on the bottom half with a sprinkling of grated cheddar over the top. On the other half, he couldn’t just do ketchup from the bottle, so he decided to make a tomato jam. You can assemble this sandwich with a day-old biscuit because toasting it is what makes it really great anyway. Add two strips of bacon to pull it all together.

1 Preheat your oven’s broiler or heat a griddle.

2 Slice each biscuit in half and butter each half with 1 teaspoon butter. Toast the biscuits under the broiler or on a griddle until the butter melts and the biscuit halves are light brown. (Or, instead of toasting the biscuits, you can use a panini grill or grill pan to mark the biscuits on the cut side.)

3 In a 9- to 10-inch omelet pan, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Once the butter is frothy, add the eggs. Gently scramble them in a circular motion with a heatproof spatula, starting from the center of the pan and moving out. Shake the pan to distribute the uncooked eggs. Once the eggs are set, divide them in half in the pan.

4 To assemble the sandwiches, place the eggs on the bottom halves of the biscuits. Place the shredded cheese on top of the eggs. Place the eggs under the broiler to briefly melt the cheese. Crisscross 2 pieces bacon on top of the cheese and dollop the top halves with 1 tablespoon Tomato Jam. Serve with Hash Browns (page 143).

SPANISH Biscuit Sandwiches

MAKES 2 SANDWICHES

2 Buttermilk Biscuits (page 17)

4 TEASPOONS unsalted butter, plus 1 TABLESPOON

1 chorizo sausage, quartered vertically

3 large eggs, whisked together

¼ CUP shredded jalapeño Jack cheese or Monterey Jack (or 2 slices)

2 HEAPING TABLESPOONS

Tomatillo Sauce (page 165)

This is the biscuit sandwich’s Spanish cousin. We split and grill the chorizo to give it that real gutsy charred flavor.

1 Preheat your oven’s broiler or heat a griddle.

2 Slice each biscuit in half and butter each half with 1 teaspoon butter. Toast the biscuits under the broiler or on a griddle until the butter melts and the biscuit halves are light brown. (Or, instead of toasting the biscuits, you can also use a panini grill or grill pan to mark the biscuits on the cut side.)

3 Grill the chorizo until both sides are crispy and seared. Or you can broil the chorizo in the oven or sauté it in a pan.

4 In a 9- to 10-inch omelet pan, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Once the butter is frothy, add the eggs. Gently scramble them in a circular motion with a heatproof spatula, starting from the center of the pan and moving out. Shake the pan to distribute the uncooked eggs. Once the eggs are set, divide them in half in the pan.

5 To assemble the sandwiches, place the eggs on the bottom halves of the biscuits. Place the shredded cheese on top of the eggs. Place the eggs under the broiler to briefly melt the cheese. Crisscross 2 pieces chorizo on top of the cheese and dollop the top halves with 1 tablespoon Tomatillo Sauce. Serve with Hash Browns (page 143).

WHOLEWHEA T Buttermilk Biscuits

MAKES 6 BISCUITS

1 CUP all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 CUP whole wheat flour

2 TABLESPOONS baking powder

1½ TABLESPOONS sugar

¼ TEASPOON salt

3 TABLESPOONS unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

3 TABLESPOONS vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into small chunks

¾ CUP buttermilk

In 2007 we were opening Community Food & Juice, a more health-conscious restaurant uptown with some of our greatest hits from downtown, and we said, Why not make a whole wheat biscuit? Neil started experimenting with ratios between whole wheat and organic white flour and came up with a nice balance. The biscuits were nutty and grainy from the whole wheat, yet still kept their fluffiness when baked. (Some of our guests like these biscuits better than the original.) Depending on how health-conscious you are, you can use more whole wheat or more white flour in this recipe. Just remember that the more whole wheat flour you use, the darker, more rustic, and less moist and fluffy the biscuits will be. It’s a bit of a trade-off.

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. (See Restaurant Trick, page 17.)

2 Place the 2 cups flour and other dry ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until combined.

3 Add the butter and shortening to the bowl and mix on low speed until the dough reaches a crumbly texture. The butter and shortening should be the size of peas.

4 Turn off the mixer and add the buttermilk to the bowl all at once. Mix very briefly on low speed until the dough just comes together (this should take less than 10 seconds). (See Note, page 17.)

5 Turn the dough onto a floured surface and form it into a ball. Lightly knead the dough two or three times until combined.

6 You can bake the biscuits the next day. Dust a sheet pan and the top of the dough with flour and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap, overnight. Then bring the dough back to room temperature.

7 Pat out the dough to a ¾- to 1-inch thickness. Shape the dough into a rectangle, making the sides high. Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out 4 biscuits (see Common Mistake, page 17). Place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and dust with a sprinkling of flour. Gather the dough scraps and, using your hands, tuck in the bottom of the dough so there are no wrinkles, much like making a bread roll. Form the remaining dough into another rectangle with high sides and cut out 2 more biscuits.

8 Place the pan in the preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through. Halfway through the baking process, rotate the pan for even browning.

9 Serve warm with butter and our house-made Raspberry Jam (page 160).

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Excerpted from Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook by Lahman, DeDe Copyright © 2010 by Lahman, DeDe. Excerpted by permission.
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