Za'atar Buttermilk Biscuits
I love taking a food that I grew up eating and adding an ingredient that I have learned about throughout my professional career. Here it’s all about biscuits. Full disclosure, I grew up noshing on the canned kind and would never turn one down.
However, the time has come that I develop my own and add a little twist. Enter za’atar spice. Za’atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend of dried herbs such as oregano, thyme, cumin, coriander, sesame seeds, and sumac. Sumac gives it a tangy flavor and the rest add an earthy element. When sprinkled on top of these biscuits it all comes together in a flakey, flavorful, baked good bundle.
The key to a flakey biscuit is making sure the butter is very, very cold. When baked, the cold butter pieces coated in the flour let off steam resulting in the flakey layers we all love. I like to freeze my butter, then grate it on the large holes of a box grater just before incorporating the flour. This ensures it stays cold while also reducing the time it takes to rub it into the flour with my warm hands.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces or grated
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk
1/3 cup grated parmesan
2 tablespoons za’atar spice
Cooking Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, light brown sugar, salt, and black pepper in a large bowl. Add the butter to the bowl and use your fingers or a pastry blender to blend it together with the flour mixture until it resembles coarse pea-sized crumbles.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and slowly pour in 2/3 cup buttermilk using a fork to gently mix it until just combined and a shaggy dough is formed. Gently and quickly fold in the parmesan reducing the amount of time you need to touch the dough as much as you can.
Lightly flour a clean work surface and turn the dough out. Form it into a rectangle about 1-inch tall. Cut into 8 squares and place onto the prepared baking sheet. Brush the top of the biscuits with the remaining 1 tablespoon heavy cream then sprinkle with the za’atar spice. Bake until they are golden brown on the top and look flakey and set on the sides, 12 to 15 minutes, Let cool 5 minutes before serving.
Yield: 8 biscuits
Active time: 20 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes
That’s all you need.