Country Breakfast

Rise and shine, y'all

Hi, I'm Paula Deen, and today I'm going to show you how to roll your family right out of that bed with my favorite country breakfast

Now, fresh is always best when it comes to the perfect scrambled egg

So let's go straight out there on the farm, and then we're going to be back to the house to roll out the quickest and easiest batch of biscuits you've ever seen

And of course, no Georgia girl worth of salt would dream of a breakfast without a big side of pan-fried country ham and steaming hot buttered grits covered in that red-eye gravy that all of us Southerners do love

So let the dog out and get the coffee brewing. It's breakfast time

I started cooking when I was 18 years old as a new bride

I'm very lucky because I came from a family of wonderful southern cooks

And at 42 years old, I was faced with having to support myself and my two sons, so I turned

to my first love, which is cooking, and so I started cooking for a living

I think food is such a big part of family, and I hope that y'all can watch me and learn

to have fun with yours while building wonderful memories around the food that you're preparing

Today, I'm going to be fixing y'all a big, hearty country breakfast fit for a country king

But first, I'm going to go out and get me some eggs. You know, the best egg is the freshest, and the freshest is the closest to where you live

So I recommend getting to know folks in your area that you can depend on for great eggs

like Randy of Love Apple Farms always gives me her best. Okay, Miss Hen, we're going to come and get some eggs from you

Thanks so much. Oh, how old? She did a great job today

They all did. I mean, they've been laying, haven't they? Yes, they sure have

What kind of chickens are these, Randy? These are called Americanas. And they lay these colored eggs just like Easter eggs

They're a bluish-green. They're beautiful. Sometimes, once in a while, we get one that's almost like a little pale pinkish color, too

Oh, wow. That's a real prize. But they have a little pale, yeah. See, like this one, this one has a little bit more green to it

Yeah, that's more green, yeah. We have some green and we have some blue. Now, do these taste any different

Oh, they do. They're my favorites. Really? They're great. They have a really yellow yolk, much more intense than the regular eggs

How many chickens laid these eggs? Oh, a lot, a lot, because a hen will only lay one egg a day

Really? So there's been many in here. I didn't know that. They're all taking turns

What is a free-range egg? Oh, a free-range egg is a hen that's allowed to just run the range

I mean, she just goes around and she pecks like a hen should peck, and we supplement it with, you know, scraps from the orchard here, all the fruit

I love Billy, or is this Betty? Huh? No, that's Billy. That's Billy

There's Betty over there. The chicken's diet really makes the flavor of the egg then a lot better than one that's..

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. More or less processed. Very much so than the feed, yeah

So we got quite a few eggs here. Those are wonderful. See, and if it were Easter, all you'd have to do is hard boil these

And you'd be all set to go. There you go. How can you tell a fresh egg from a stale one

Well, one thing is when you crack an egg and you were going to say fry it and put it in a pan

if the yolk stays together, you know it's fresh. If it falls apart, it's an old egg

And then, of course, if you boil water and you drop the egg in

if the eggs that are fresh will go to the bottom and the ones that are not fresh will stay near the top

Okay, so we need to take those out. Yes, exactly. And then, of course, adding a little vinegar to the water

to the water, that's very good for it too. And salt also, adding a little salt to it helps it

Salt will help you peel it easy. Exactly. Because you know, fresh boiled eggs are very hard to peel

Oh, Randi, thank you so much. Oh, you are so welcome. I'm going to make the most wonderful

scrambled eggs out of these. Oh, I bet you will. And the great treat was bringing farm fresh eggs

home to my kitchen the same day they were laid. These are going to taste wonderful

Well, I finally got all of our ingredients gathered up. Look at these beautiful eggs

But before we get to these, I'm going to go on and immediately start with our biscuits

And this morning, I'm going to be preparing y'all wonderful, fluffy cream cheese biscuits

And it's so very simple. All you do is start with a pre-mixed biscuit mix

And we're going to dump those right in there. And we're going to take some cream cheese

And for this amount I going to use about 3 ounces I just going to put that right in there on top of them And we just going to cut that cream cheese into our biscuit mix until it kind of resembles

course meal. You know, a lot of people are so leery about making biscuits, but the biscuit mix will

really help you along and make it a lot simpler for you. All right, I've got all the cream cheese cut into the biscuit mix, and I think they're

just right. So now I'm just going to pour enough milk in them to get them workable for me before

I pour them out onto the cutting board to roll. And with a biscuit mix, it's not like using regular flour

I have found over the years that the less you work this, the better off you are

It makes for a lighter, fluffier biscuit. And I think those are just right

Look at this wonderful jar of honey waiting on our biscuits. I'm going to just lightly flour my cutting board, and then I'm also going to flour my

rolling pin because I don't want the dough sticking to it and causing me any more grief

than I have to have. So we're just going to scoop this out onto our cutting board

I'm going to sprinkle just a little bit of flour on it, and then I'm ever so gently going

to knead it just a few times, not much. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make with biscuits is probably too much handling

You see how very, very little I touched that dough. We're just going to very gently roll them out

Now, as far as the thickness of your biscuit, a lot of people like a real fat, tall, fluffy biscuit

and some people like a thinner, shorter biscuit. But I'm going to kind of make ours almost in between

You just take your biscuit cutter, run it through your flour, so that your biscuit won't stick to it when you lift it

Just push it through, and look at that beautiful biscuit. And I'm going to place him onto a greased cookie sheet

and I'm going to put mine on my cookie sheet about two inches apart

But the person that would like a soft biscuit would tuck them close together so that the only part

that would get brown and crispy would be on the outside and the top

But like I said, this morning I think I want a totally browned biscuits, so I'm gonna put mine about two inches apart. And when you've used up

the bulk of your dough, all you have to do is gather up your biscuits, knead them another

time or two to just get them back together, put a little flour on them, hit them again

and that way we're gonna get every bite out of our biscuit dough. Our biscuits are on

our grease sheet pan, and they're ready to go into an oven, and I'm gonna put them in

at 375. And these are real quick. Keep an eye on them. Depending on the thickness, they

could be ready anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes. Oh, look at them. Just like I like

them. Nice and brown. How's that, Phug Gorgeous Biscuit? With hardly any effort. I'm going

steal just one little biscuit before the rest of the gang comes in for breakfast. And I'm going to just get me a bite of butter

And I've just got to taste it with this honey. If that's not the fluffiest, richest biscuit

grits ain't groceries in a poor man's house. And it's not only grits today

When we come back, a fabulous country ham. We're back and I've got our pot ready for our grits

I've got water in here, but I've also got a secret ingredient that the grits box won't

tell you about and that's milk. And I'm going to add a little salt because every southerner knows that if you don't sawn

your grits at the very beginning of cooking, you'll never get them salty. And the next

tip I want to share with you on grit cooking is never stop stirring until every one of

those grits is wet and thoroughly mixed in. Because if I had just dumped those grits in

that pot and turned around to my sink to do something, when I turned back around, I would

have big knots of grits. And once your grits knot up, you can't hardly get them out. Now

Now in the south, we never use an instant grit. We use the quick cooking kind that says

cooks in five minutes. The only trick there is we don't cook them for five minutes. We

cook them anywhere from 25 to 30 to 45 minutes. Now this is coming back to a boil. I'm going

to cut those down to the lowest heat and I'm not going to get too far from my grit pot

In the meantime, I'm going to come over here and I'm going to start our country ham. Now

I working with a whole country ham today but in the grocery store you find these little babies already sliced very thin and cryovac for you so you can buy one or two servings at the time And I going to start by cutting off just a little bit of

fat, and I'm going to bring it over to my skillet. And I'm starting with a hot, clean skillet

There's no oil or anything in this. This piece of fat will just grease up our pan nicely so that

when our slices are added to it, it won't stick very badly. But you can see my skillet is

nice and hot. You can see that fat just smoking in that skillet. Look at that beautiful ham

And we're just going to kind of keep them moving for a minute until they get going

While these are getting nice and hot and beginning to cook, I'm going to move over here to our

grit pot and see how they're doing. I'm going to need to add water to these because you can see

how thick they've gotten in just a short time. So I'm slowly going to add some more water

You should add hot water to these as you need them. Down south, you know, we argue among ourselves

over the proper way to eat grits. You'll have some people that like what they call a fork grit

And what that means is when they put their fork in their grits, they're so thick their fork will

stand up. And look at our ham. It's just getting a nice little crispy crust on it. And we're

far enough along with our grits now. I'm going to add a little butter to them. And that'll

help make them even more creamy when we're ready to serve them. Grits come from ground

corn. It looks very, very much like cream of wheat. But it has a totally different flavor

And a lot of people that are not from the south that eat them for the first time tell

me that it reminds them of polenta, which polenta is ground corn also. And I'm going

to stick our little piece of fat back into our pan along with our ham to just keep it

good and greased. And our ham's coming along nicely. As you can see, it's getting little

beautiful little brown spots on it. Down south, we wouldn't dream of having country ham in

the morning without red-eye gravy. And actually, it's not really a gravy at all. It's called

mixed with a brown sediments that have come out of the ham while you're cooking

And it's a very thin gravy, and you just pour it over your grits

and it just kind of goes everywhere all over your plates. And those are almost done, so I'm going to stick in another piece

I think I'm going to reach down here and get one of these nice thin slices. I really do like my country ham sliced thin

And when you're cooking with cast iron, you have to really be careful because once these bad boys are hot, they are hot as a firecracker

All right, I'm ready to take our country ham up. And, you know, we argue about this down in the South

Some people like their ham kind of soft and tender, and some people like theirs crispy

So if you want it crispy, you would cook it in a skillet that's a little hotter

If you like it soft and more of a light brown color

then you would cook it in a slower skillet. But isn't that beautiful? All right, now our skillet is good and hot, and all I'm going to do at this point is add some good strong coffee to it

Isn't that amazing that something so good can be so simple? so simple. All right, I had turned my fire down. Now I'm going to turn it back up, and I'm going to

just let that boil away for just a minute or two. Look at that rich brown sauce. It's going to go

over those hot buttery boiling grits. You know, I think this red-eye gravy needs two more little

things. I think it needs a little pat of butter and a little beef bouillon, and it'll be just

perfect. Our grits are just perfect. You know I was telling you a while ago while I was

cooking them how we argue about fork grits, spoon grits. These are almost in the middle

And even though I've added butter to the pot while I was cooking them, I'm still going

to put me a little bit more butter to go on top of them along with this red-eye gravy

How good does that look on a cold morning? Oh, it's truly out of this world

Coming up next, perfect scrambled eggs. I'm going to wrap this breakfast meal up now by scrambling the most wonderful, light, fluffy

eggs you've ever eaten. So I've got some wonderful farm fresh eggs

I had a ball going into the chicken coop and getting these And I cooking breakfast this morning for four of us so I think I going to scramble eight eggs Look how beautiful and golden these yolks are Look at that deep

rich color. While I'm cracking these eggs, I want to remind y'all, don't ever use an egg that you

didn't crack yourself. If you go to the grocery store, I always open my carton and check for any

eggs that might be cracked or damaged. And then I swap them out and let the next person

get them. All right, we're going to start with a fairly hot skillet. And like a good

southern girl, I'm going to start with a nice fat plop of butter. And we don't want our skillet

too hot because we don't want our butter to burn. And while that's melting, I'm going

to come over here and I'm going to beat up our eggs. Now you can do this one of three

ways. You can do it with a fork or a whisk or even an electric mixer. I'm going to add a little salt

a little fresh ground pepper, a little water. I don't like to put milk in my eggs because they have a tendency to make them very tough

and the water keeps them light and fluffy. And for the secret ingredient on this, I'm going to

add a nice fat dollop of sour cream. The sour cream will yield you a very fluffy, creamy

scrambled egg. All right, it looks like our pan's ready and our eggs are ready. So I'm

just going to pour these into that skillet. And I'm going to stir them around a little

bit. Do you know I thought I knew everything about scrambling a good egg until Stacy, my

My son Jamie's girlfriend had me over for breakfast one morning and she cooked us eggs

I said, Stacy, these eggs are exceptionally good. What did you do to them

And she said, I put a big old tablespoon of sour cream in them

And I said, well, I don't think I'll ever cook an egg again that doesn't have sour cream

Now I'm going to put that lid on them and let the heat start cooking them on the top

When these are almost ready, I'm going to take the lid off, fluff them, and then I'm

going to add a nice bitey cheese to the top of them. All right, I'm going to turn this

off now because they're almost ready. And I'm going to let them just continue to cook

And for these eggs this morning, I'm using a nice, sharp cheddar cheese. And I'm just

going to put those over the eggs. And I'm going to put the lid back on them. I've already

cut off the fire, so the cheese will melt strictly from the heat that was left in the

pan. And that shouldn't take but a minute. And then we're ready to dish up

Ooh, doggy, those are good. When we come back, a breakfast fit for a country king

and some tips on how to not waste a morsel. Before we eat, I want to share just a couple of things with you

Remember, in scrambled eggs, always use water instead of milk. The water will make them light and fluffy, where milk will make them tough

So always beat them with water, with just a little water. And as usual, it's so hard to cook just a small amount of grits

I have overcooked my grits. I have too many. but that's all right because they'll be good tomorrow morning

I'm going to take a glass that I have sprayed with a nonstick spray

and I'm just going to put my grits over in there. I'm just going to pack them down in there

I'm going to take my grits while they're still warm and soft and put them in a well-greased glass

and I'm going to stick these in the fridge. And tomorrow morning for breakfast, I'm going to take them out

and I'm going to run a knife around the edge of this glass, and my grits will just slide out onto a plate

and I'm going to slice them about a half an inch thick and I'm going to beat up an egg with a little milk and salt and pepper

and lightly run them through a coating of that. And then I'm going to fry them up in that black skillet

and they'll be so good tomorrow with a whole new twist. Well, I've worked up a tremendous appetite and I'm hungry as a bear

I can't wait to dive into these hot biscuits and these buttered grits and the country ham

and these perfect scrambled eggs just covered in a zesty cheese. You know there's nothing any better than coming home from work

on a cold winter night and coming in and slipping into your favorite robe

and those nice, soft, fluffy slippers and going into the kitchen and cooking up a hearty breakfast

and having it for dinner. So until next time, America, Best dishes from my country kitchen to yours