Good morning all!

Welcome back.

That’s quite the sexy, intriguing, “anything-is-possible” image up there isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

Try this one on for size instead.

A little better?

Shit, man! Work with me here.

How would one actually approach the concept of recipe writing for…well, “Shit on a Shingle?”

I know, right?

Somewhere over the past few weeks, forgive me but my mind slips occasionally, somebody actually suggested this item for Sunday Gravy. And, as always, I am happy to take requests. Always.

While not shying away from the idea I did want to add a couple of legitimate badass recipes if I’m undertaking the “polarizing” menu of creamed chipped beef on toast.

You long time readers may remember back a couple of years ago when DFO writer/contributor Romonobyl had a series of blog posts entitled “Midweek Rations.” Indeed, he did make this recipe on one of those episodes.

Here’s his photo.

I loved Midweek Rations, by the way, where the concept was recipes that could be made during the week and were delicious but maybe not quite as involved as some of my Sunday Gravy undertakings.

We would all be open for some new recipe concepts Mr. Romonobyl! Just throwing that out there!

Since a request was specifically made, I had no hesitation giving this baby a go.

Back story!

I know I’ve talked about my paternal grandmother, “Grandmommie” before because she was goddamn awesome. My grandmother was extremely independent, grew her own vegetables and fruits, made her own booze, “fermented fruit” she called it, she drank like a fucking fish – up to a case of Olympia beer a day – she taught me the basics of Cajun cooking – she was from Louisiana and all – plus she swore like a motherfucking sailor. See? A goddamn inspiration.

Anyway, Grandmommie introduced me to this dish when I was much, much younger. She referred to it only by the sobriquet of “Shit-on-a-shingle.” She was a cantankerous old bird. She also called my brothers and I “little shit-asses” or little “Sonsabitches” as a term of endearment and I miss her dearly.

Her version was solid. It’s meat in a cream gravy after all and does the damn job but it does lack a little, shall we say, “je ne sais quoi” that some people have a hard time getting past. It’s a very simple meal of a roux, some milk and some salt and pepper along with the dried beef and if you want to keep it classic that’s all you add. I did a little more spice and I’ll get to that. What I DID want to do was bring the other elements of this meal up to my own, granted, “ridiculous” standards.

Instead of a “shingle” – which is a piece of toast – I made homemade buttermilk biscuits and for a side dish I made this beautiful fucking thing.

That my dear friends is a “Rösti.” Pronounced “Roe-shtee.” It’s a simple Swiss potato dish and it’s a goddamn keeper. You will see this fucker again I can fucking guarantee you. It’s basically a large potato pancake, yeah it looks like a hash brown too, but it’s crispier on the outside and very soft and fluffy in the middle. It is also cut into wedges and served with any number of gravy type dishes over it. My inspiration for making this came after the LA DFO crew met for German food a few weeks ago at the Alpine Village Restaurant in Torrance. I ordered beef stroganoff served over rösti and it was indeed inspirational.

OK. The basics. This shit.

That is a 2.5 ounce jar of Hormel dried beef. Sounds delicious doesn’t it? Let’s get us a closer look see.

That is just funky-ass shit right there. It’s cut into rounds and rolled up together.

If left on the shelf long enough these can be stitched together into a regulation MLB baseball.

The general appearance looked like large slices of pepperoni and let me tell you this shit was SALTY! The good news is I sampled it first and figured out a work-around by adding this familiar item.

Yep.

That is not exactly the most extravagant item on your supermarket shelf either but it is a bit less salty and it added additional meat, more than the 2.5 ounces anyway, to the final product.

Yes, the packages say “pastrami” because for some unfathomable reason the store was actually SOLD OUT of the beef version.

Goddamn people. Raise your fucking standards and buy some real fucking roast beef from the deli.

Or maybe a lot of people use it for this exact recipe. I had no idea of the drawing power of homemade shit on a shingle. Color me surprised.

Oh fuck it, let’s make this damn thing.

For quick reference I built this meal in the following order: start your biscuit dough, then get the potatoes going, biscuits go in the oven then build the SOS and everything is completed at the same time. For continuity sake I will post each recipe on it’s own.

Shit.*

* I believe the politically correct name is creamed chipped beef.

Some of that dried beef stuff. Again that was 2 packets of the Carl Buddig meat like substance and (1) 2.5 ounce jar of the dried beef. My store didn’t carry the dried beef so I got it from Amazon.

3 cups of whole milk.

4 tablespoons of flour.

4 tablespoons of butter.

Salt and pepper to taste.

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne.

Chop up the meat like substances into smaller bits.

Get out your skillet/pot/Dutch oven of choice and melt the butter. Add in the chopped up meat to give it a warm up, then toss in the flour over the top of everything.

Give this a stir and let cook for a couple of minutes until the butter and flour have incorporated.

Next add in the milk and stir to combine. This will only take a few minutes depending on how tight you want the sauce. Get the gravy to bubbling and cook to your desired consistency. I like a medium/thicker gravy here.

Season with the salt, pepper and cayenne.

When done, serve over toast, biscuits or your starch of choice.

I made homemade buttermilk biscuits because that’s my idea of a proper…

 

“Shingle.”

Yes, yes we’ve done biscuits before but now that it’s confirmed that I’ve got a collection of foreign bots stalking me I figured I could give the recipe again.

2 cups of all purpose flour.

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

2 teaspoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

6 tablespoons of VERY COLD butter cut into chunks

3/4 cup of buttermilk.

To get started I cut up the butter and put it in the freezer.

Now preheat your oven to 450 degrees. I’m going to do the quick and easy version of this by dumping all of the dry ingredients into a food processor.

Give this a couple of quick pulses to combine the ingredients. Next add in the cold butter.

Then give this a few more pulses to break down the butter into small “pea size” chunks. The reason for the cold butter is it will retain its form when you cut out the biscuits, allowing it to melt as it cooks in the oven. This will make the biscuits flakier and fluffier. And couldn’t we all use a little more flaky and fluffy in our lives?

Put the now combined dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold over about 3-4 times. This will help to build some layers into the biscuits. Flatten a bit but not too flat.

Then using a biscuit cutter, cut into about a dozen biscuits depending on size.

Check this shit out!

Graduated biscuit cutters! These range in size from whatever the fuck that smaller size is. Dumplings maybe? All the way up to a goddamn pastry shell. I used the one in the middle but would consider an upgrade to the second largest size. New kitchen toys!

Place the biscuits against each other on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Baste the top of the biscuits with a little buttermilk or melted butter. The reason we place the biscuits next to each other is this will allow them to rise or “get taller” as the Southerners say.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until the biscuits are golden.

And you’ve made yourself some damn buttermilk biscuits.

Now let’s get after that badass potato motherfucker.

Rösti.

About 1 pound of russet potatoes.

1 teaspoon of salt.

A grind of black pepper.

Olive oil – about 1/3 to 1/2 cup.

That’s it.

It was after I made this dish, on the fly by the way, that I found out that traditional rösti is made using ONLY potatoes, salt and clarified butter.

Well excuse the shit out of me! This bastard was delicious and besides, I was almost out of butter.

Wash and peel the potatoes, then using the larger holes on your box grater, grate the potatoes into a bowl.

This is where I added the salt and pepper. Let the potatoes rest for a couple of minutes, don’t worry about the potatoes discoloring a bit since the finished product will be golden brown and delicious anyway.

Now the fun part. Get a CLEAN kitchen towel, place the potatoes inside and squeeze the bejabbers out of them.

We want to squeeze out as much water from the potatoes as we can. This makes the potatoes crispier when cooked. Let me tell you folks, there is a fucking LOT of water in potatoes. A lot.

Place the now freshly squeezed potatoes back into the bowl.

If you enlarge the 2 photos you can see the difference before and after the water has been removed.

Get a saute pan over the stove and heat the pan up over medium heat. Once the pan is nice and hot, add in the oil.

Have we talked about “hot pan cold oil?” The idea is by adding the oil to a hot pan it will help keep the food from sticking and we don’t want our rösti to stick. That’s also why I’m using a non-stick pan here rather than my cast iron.

Now, dropping small handfuls of the potato at a time get all of the potatoes into the pan and lower the heat to medium/medium low.

Gently press the potatoes down using a spatula. Not too hard since we want a fluffy center. Leave the potatoes undisturbed for 15 minutes. Yes, 15 minutes. If you’ve got wicked pan flipping skills use them here or to be on the safe side place a large plate over the pan then flip the pan over leaving the potatoes on the plate. Gently slide the potatoes back into the skillet to cook on the other side. Careful, that shit’s a little tricky but it can be done.

Just look at that sexy fucking thing!

The 15 minutes on the first side gives us the deep, rich brown color that we’re looking for. The second side of the rösti will cook for about 8-10 minutes. When done, simply slide the finished product onto a plate or cutting board, cut into wedges and serve.

The way I plated the whole meal was to put a wedge of the rösti onto a plate, cut a couple of the biscuits in half and then ladle some of the “shit” over the top.

I paired this lovely delicate dish with a delicious cabernet sauvignon called “Bourne of Fire.” I’ll let Total Wines hit you with the bougie wine details: “This elegant wine leads with aromas of pomegranate and herbs. Upon tasting the wine, powdery tannins frame flavors of cherry, currant, savory spice, and red pepper. Pairs best with savory dishes.”

Sorry. That was supposed to be the joke. Actually the wine is fucking delicious and while it is a mid-tier priced wine – $25-30 bucks – it is a fucking beauty and worth the effort to find it.

And yes it paired very well with the shit on a shingle.

While doing my best to knock this dish and look down my nose at it, I mean what the fuck’s not to like? It is a very tasty gravy with bits of meat in it served over homemade buttermilk biscuits and an amazing potato dish. All in all it was delicious. I would probably fuck around with the meat in the gravy a bit next time, I’ll bet some ground Italian sausage or even a bulk breakfast sausage would be fucking delightful but you can’t mess around with the classics.

There you go. I hope I didn’t scare you away from this American classic with the jokes. Although it does lend itself to joking.

Give it a try!

If nothing else, make some form of gravy and serve it over those biscuits and you most definitely want to try that rösti. That fucker was GOOD.

Thanks for being there folks. You too “Sharonjoe!”

See you next time.

PEACE!