We asked Chef Joshua Drage for his secrets to the best biscuits, gravy, cowboy coffee, and more. Here are some of the chef’s favorite Dutch oven recipes.
Cowboy breakfast is another excuse to cook outside around a fire in a Dutch oven. Whether it’s in Montana at the foot of the Upper Rock Creek Valley looking down-valley or in your own favorite camping spot, there’s something unbeatable about biscuits and gravy and cowboy coffee to get you up and out of your sleeping bag.
Cowboy Campfire Breakfast And More
Cowboy Coffee
First, the coffee. The “Arbuckle’s” that ranch hands would drink was fresh, hot, and black. “Cowboy coffee is the best around a campfire,” Drage says. “Essentially it is coffee that is not strained in any way from pot to cup. Bring your water to a boil and let it cool slightly (at 5,100 feet above sea level, water boils at 203 degrees, so we’ll let that cool by only 5 degrees). Then add in your coarse grounds and stir with a spoon — it should foam up if you are using good coffee. Cover and let sit for a few minutes. Add a spoon of cold water and the grounds will settle out. If you are pouring grounds into the cup, then you are not doing it right. Serve fireside — it’s the best.”
For Chef’s complete tutorial on cowboy coffee, check theranchatrockcreek.com.
Buttermilk Biscuits
It’s all about the buttermilk, ice-cold butter, and not messing too much with the dough.
5 cups flour
2 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon Kosher sea salt
⅓ cup sugar
2 cups buttermilk
½ pound butter, ice cold!
2 eggs
Mix all dry ingredients. Remove ice-cold butter from freezer and grate on a hand grater, like you would with a block of cheese. Cut into your dry ingredients with a pastry knife. Mix buttermilk and eggs together and pour into dry mix; scrape bowl with spatula. Work by hand until it just comes together. Rest dough for 30 minutes in fridge. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pull dough and roll out to 1½ inches thick. Punch out biscuits and place close together — but not touching — in one or two cast-iron skillets. Bake for 25 minutes.
Elk Sausage Gravy
1 pound loose elk sausage (pork sausage works great too!)
Half of small onion
3 cloves garlic
5 stems fresh thyme
2 Bay leaves
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 quart whole milk
Salt
Pepper
Tabasco
In a cast-iron Dutch oven, brown your sausage. Tie your thyme and bay leaves together in a bundle with butcher twine, leaving a tail on the end to tie off to the pot. Small dice your onion and mince your garlic. Add your onion and garlic to the pot, soften in with the elk sausage, and remove sausage and onion leaving rendered fat in the bottom of the pan. Add a tablespoon of butter and flour. Mix evenly making a pan roux. Add your milk and let it warm slowly, whisking frequently. It will thicken as it starts to simmer. Add your thyme bundle to the pot, tying it off to the handle if you prefer. Add back the sausage and onion. Keep stirring on low and cook the roux out for about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and Tabasco. Let it cool slightly for final taste and adjustment if needed.
Gratin Potatoes
Five large russet potatoes
Pint of heavy cream
½ pound Fontina cheese
3 cloves garlic
Chile flakes
Thyme
Black pepper
Sea salt
Butter
Combine cream, milk, garlic cloves, chili flakes, and thyme. Bring to a simmer and let steep for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and slice russet potatoes on a mandolin as thick as a silver dollar. Shred Fontina cheese. Strain cream through a basket strainer. Grease your cast-iron pan with a stick of butter. Shingle in your potatoes one layer at a time. Spoon enough cream to cover each layer, but not swimming in it. Salt and pepper each layer and add a sprinkle of cheese to each layer as well. Repeat until you run out of potato.
Place in oven. Bake until fork-tender. First half covered, and second half uncovered. Midway through the cooking process the gratin should look loose as the cream heats up. Once the starch from the potato mixes with the cream and reduces a bit. it will be a perfect sauce-like consistency.
Cast-Iron Mushrooms
Handful French horn mushrooms
Two cultivated hen of the wood mushrooms (or handful of foraged)
Handfuls of grey dove oyster mushrooms
Bunch of fresh sage leaf
3 cloves of garlic, slivered
Olive oil
Chili flakes
Sea salt
Black pepper
Cut the French horn in half, making a mushroom silhouette. Cut the end off the hens and break into large pieces. Cut the oyster mushroom into single stems. Heat your cast iron to medium-high heat; add olive oil, garlic, and sage. Remove when crisp. Place a paper towel over a plate. Reheat cast iron and add olive oil; add in enough mushrooms to cover the bottom, but not overly stuffed. Let them brown on one side without tossing them in the pan. Remove when browned on one side. Repeat until you have gone through all the mushrooms. Now add all the mushrooms, garlic, and sage back to the pan and cook for 10 minutes on low heat. Season liberally with sea salt, red chili flakes, and black pepper.
Check out our chat Chef Joshua Drage and more.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of the Ranch at Rock Creek