We all know a good biscuit when we see one. Pulling open a warm biscuit should give way to layer after layer of buttery, flakey pastry just waiting to be slathered with jam. A bite of a biscuit should be tender on the inside and crumble just a bit on the outside. How do you achieve such a delicate, unique biscuit texture? For Petee’s Pie Company in New York City, the answer is potatoes. Yes, those very potatoes you planned to turn into hash browns Sunday morning can actually be used to improve a classic biscuit recipe.
When processed into tiny pieces with a ricer, cooked white potatoes become a valuable baking ingredient. Cut riced potatoes into the dry ingredients of a biscuit recipe for extra moisture in the finished product. Due to their starchy composition, potatoes also affect the structure of the finished biscuits. Like cornstarch in a cake, potatoes help soften the gluten in all-purpose flour and generate a lighter biscuit interior. If that weren’t enough reason to try it, potatoes also help the pastry stay fresh for longer after they’re baked—because is there really anything sadder than a stale biscuit?
This method, used in the biscuits made at Petee’s, serves as the base for the restaurant's “bisquiche.” Half biscuit sandwich, half classic quiche, Petee’s bisquiche is a vegetable-packed quichelet sandwiched between a fluffy biscuit. One of those try it once, crave it every morning breakfasts, you can pick up a bisquiche at Petee’s Pie Company or make one yourself.
Petee's Pie Company Bisquiche
How to Make It
To make the biscuits, mix together dry ingredients in a medium-large bowl. Stick in the freezer.
Chop butter into ½-inch cubes. Toss in flour. Freeze for 10 minutes.
Squeeze butter into thin sheets with fingers. (Alternatively, freeze butter and grate it using the grater attachment of your food processor, then toss in cold flour.) Add cold riced potato and disperse well, pinching any large chunks apart.
Pour buttermilk over mixture. Mix with a fork until it just barely turns into a dough.
Transfer dough to a well-floured worked surface. Sprinkle with flour and press the dough into a circle that is 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a circular cutter. pressing straight down and lifting straight up (don’t twist—it seals the edges so they don’t rise as nicely.)
Bake on a perforated pan lined with parchment at 425ºF for 4 minutes. Turn the temperature down to 400ºF, open oven briefly to bring down temperature, then cook for another 8 minutes.
Mix the first four ingredients with a whisk. Disperse vegetables and cheese equally among 12 muffin tins. Pour quiche liquid over vegetables and cheese. Bake at 400ºF for 10 minutes, or until puffy in the center. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan with the help of a rubber spatula.
Split the biscuit in half. Place quichelet on one biscuit half. Feel free to add bacon or more cheese. (If adding cheese, put it right on the half of the biscuit and place it under the broiler briefly to melt.) Place the other half of the biscuit on top.
This is meant to be eaten warm. Biscuits and quiche can both be reheated for a few minutes in the oven before assembly, if necessary.
