Chorizo Biscuits

Chorizo biscuits are tall buttermilk biscuits with browned chorizo, sharp cheddar and scallions folded right into the dough. Cook a pound of ground pork chorizo until it is browned and cooked through, drain it and chill it, then work it into a quick dough of flour, cold butter and buttermilk. Pat, fold, cut and bake at 425 degrees for 16 to 20 minutes.

The chiles and garlic in the chorizo season the whole biscuit, and its fat tints the crumb a warm orange. The one thing to get right is temperature. The chorizo must be cold before it meets the dough, or it melts the butter and the biscuits bake short and flat.

At a glance: makes about 12 biscuits. Prep 25 minutes, cook about 30 minutes, chill the chorizo 20 minutes, cool 5 minutes.

Gray Shipley, who runs the farm, was talking about burgers, not biscuits, when he said this about mayonnaise:

“If you're going to put mayonnaise on a burger, take the time to get an egg and some lemon juice and make the, you know, put some avocado oil in. Make the mayonnaise, it ain't hard.”

Gray Shipley

His point was about mayonnaise: when the homemade version is that easy, make it. Biscuits are the same kind of job. A tube of dough from the store saves a few minutes, but flour, cold butter and buttermilk come together in a bowl in about 10, and you decide exactly what goes in.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground pork chorizo
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the counter
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar, about 4 ounces
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1 1/4 cups cold buttermilk, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons if needed
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, for brushing

Instructions

1. Cook the chorizo in a large skillet over medium heat, breaking it into small crumbles with a wooden spoon, until it is browned and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. A thermometer pushed into a thick clump should read 160 degrees F.
2. Spoon the chorizo onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain, chop any large clumps, then spread it on a clean plate and refrigerate until cold, about 20 minutes. Heat the oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment.
3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the cold butter and cut it in with a pastry blender or your fingertips until the largest pieces are the size of peas.
4. Stir in the cold chorizo, cheddar and scallions. Pour in the buttermilk and stir with a fork just until a shaggy dough forms and no dry flour is left in the bottom of the bowl. Add a spoonful more buttermilk only if it will not come together.
5. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and pat it into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Fold it in half, pat it out again, and repeat twice more. The folds make the layers.
6. Pat the dough to 1 inch thick and cut straight down with a floured 2 1/2-inch cutter, without twisting. Press the scraps together once and cut again. Set the biscuits on the baking sheet with their sides just touching for soft sides, or 1 inch apart for crisp ones.
7. Bake for 16 to 20 minutes, until the biscuits are tall, deep golden on top and browned underneath. Brush them with the melted butter and let them cool on the pan for 5 minutes before serving.

Add 1 lb ground pork chorizo to cart

Why the chorizo goes in cold

Biscuits rise because small pieces of cold butter turn to steam in a hot oven and push the dough apart. Warm chorizo, or its warm fat, melts that butter before the biscuits ever reach the oven, and you get short, greasy biscuits instead of tall, flaky ones. Draining the chorizo matters for the same reason. On a warm day, chill the cut biscuits on their pan for 10 minutes before they go in.

Chop the cooked chorizo fine, too. Big clumps tear the layers when you cut the dough, and small crumbles spread evenly so every bite gets some.

Cut biscuits or drop biscuits?

Cut biscuits are taller and flakier, thanks to the folding. Drop biscuits are faster and a little craggier, with crisp edges that catch the chorizo fat. For drop biscuits, add an extra 1/4 cup of buttermilk so the dough is soft and sticky, skip the folding, and drop it in 1/3-cup mounds 2 inches apart. Bake at the same 425 degrees for 15 to 18 minutes.

Which chorizo to use

This recipe is written for fresh ground chorizo, which is raw and has to be cooked before it goes into the dough. Dry-cured Spanish chorizo, the firm kind sliced like salami, is a different sausage. It can be diced and folded in without cooking, but the flavor and texture are not the same. The guides below compare chorizo with Italian sausage and cover the other pork sausages.

Serving chorizo biscuits

Serve them warm with butter and honey, or split them and fill them with scrambled or fried eggs and a slice of tomato for breakfast sandwiches. They sit well next to a plate of eggs and potatoes, and the breakfast hash guide below makes a good partner for a weekend brunch. If you want something to spread inside, homemade mayonnaise stirred with a little lime juice and chopped chipotle is very good with chorizo.

Make ahead, freezing and reheating

Cut biscuits freeze well unbaked. Freeze them on the lined sheet until hard, then pack them in a freezer bag. Bake from frozen at 425 degrees, adding 3 to 5 minutes. Baked biscuits hold cooked meat, so refrigerate them within two hours of baking rather than leaving them in the bread box. Reheat them in a 350-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes, until hot through and 165 degrees F in the center. The microwave works but softens the crust.

Food safety

USDA FSIS lists 160 degrees F as the safe minimum internal temperature for ground meats, and fresh chorizo is ground meat. Its chiles turn it red all the way through, so color tells you nothing; check a thick clump with an instant-read thermometer before you drain it. Wash your hands, board and spoon after handling the raw sausage, and keep it away from food that will not be cooked. Reheat leftovers to 165 degrees F. See the FSIS Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart.