Delicious Hatch Chile Sourdough Biscuits made quickly and easily with sourdough discard – they make up beautifully and are great served with butter!
This past year has been a crazy one for many of us. There were definitely so many uncertainties – at times, it almost seemed unbearable and confusing. But despite the challenges came room to learn and grow.
As uncertain as things became, one thing remained tried and true: my sourdough starter. My starter has stuck with me through the thick and the thin. Sammy (my starter) has helped inspire many baking challenges.
Sourdough Starter and Discard
This past year, banana bread got me back into making sourdough. Well before the quarantine inspired baking challenges, I gradually started mixing and shaping more sourdough loaves after allowing my starter to die several times over years prior.
Banana bread is not the official route into sourdough bread. But it was one of my favorite comfort foods to use and the recipe called for using excess sourdough starter. Basically – sourdough discard. Or the starter that you “discard” before feeding what’s remaining before you start the bread making process.
Discard was what pulled me back in to mixing up more bread – measuring out discarded starter, feeding what was left and then topping the starter with a lid until it started to bubble up hours later.
Over the last few years I’ve grown an attachment to sourdough discard. If you would have asked me early on, I would have told you that discard is just that – discard. Just toss it out and never think twice about it again.
But as time progressed, I realized that discard was indeed one of the best parts of making a sourdough starter. Since then this discard has been used for a variety of favorites:
- Sourdough Starter Crackers
- Banana Bread (made with sourdough starter discard)
- Sourdough Pretzels
- Even the most delicious Popovers made with sourdough starter
Hatch Chile Sourdough Biscuits
There’s something about biscuits though… they are perhaps my favorite. When combined with the lovely flavor of roasted and chopped Hatch chiles – double yum!
These Hatch chiles came from the Hatch Chile store. Not only do they offer a variety of heat levels (these were medium-hot), they ship them on dry ice so they arrive on your doorstep super fresh.
- A 5 lb box can last for quite a while
- Each pound is packaged in a resealable bag that can lay flat in your freezer
- Their customer service is top notch!
The Hatch Chile store has made it effortless to order your Hatch chiles online in their store and have them shipped to your door easily.
Certainly I wanted to incorporate these chiles into my biscuits – after all, who doesn’t love the flavor of spicy chiles? Some chiles.. a little shredded cheese and voila – you have the tastiest biscuits. All made with sourdough discard that would have probably gone in the trash.
Are these biscuits worth making?
These biscuits are easier to make then regular biscuits – a few tips to help you make the best biscuit:
- Use cold butter – cut your butter into small pieces and chill for 20-30 minutes before adding to your mixer
- Mix your butter with your dry ingredients until crumbly
- Add room temperature sourdough starter and mix just until combined. The mixture should be rather moist, without being too wet.
- Dust your flat surface with flour and fold your dough as instructed to create the most delicious, buttery layers
- Bake just until brown
Hatch Chile Sourdough Biscuits
Ingredients
Biscuits:
- 1/2 C unsalted butter chilled, cut into small pieces
- 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1.5 C all purpose flour plus more for dusting (188 g)
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 C Hatch chiles roasted and chopped
- 1/2 C cheddar cheese shredded
- 1 C sourdough starter discard from starter fed within the previous 24 hours, room temperature (270 g)
For Brushing Biscuits before Baking:
- 2 Tbsp butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the chilled butter with the sugar, salt and flour. Cut the butter into those dry ingredients until the mixture looks like shaggy crumbles.
- Add the baking powder, baking soda, Hatch chiles and cheese and sourdough starter. Mix briefly, just until combined. Dough should have come together nicely, with just a few crumbles at the bottom of the bowl.
- Transfer dough to a well-floured surface. Pat out with your hands until 1/2" thick. Shape isn't too important at this point.
- Fold into thirds as you would a letter. Pat out dough again to 1/2 inch thick, and then turn the dough 90 degrees. Fold into thirds again, as you would write a letter to create a rather rough rectangle. Push to 1/2 inch thick, and then repeat: turn, fold, and pat out - this will help create the flaky layers of the biscuits as they bake.
- After repeating the folding and patting 3-4 times, the dough should feel light and airy, like a pillow. Push out to 1/2 inch thick. Use the mouth of a canning jar or a biscuit cutter to cut round biscuits - depending on the size of your jar/biscuit cutter, you should get 6-8 biscuits.
- Transfer biscuits to a lined baking sheet, spacing them 1 inch apart. Gently take the scraps, and pat them out into a rectangle, and cut biscuits from the remaining dough.
- Brush the tops of your biscuits with belted butter, and bake at 425 degrees F for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve with butter.
Notes
Have you ever made Hatch Chile Sourdough Biscuits?
If not, give them a try. They make a wonderful breakfast biscuit. They’re even better with some Hatch Chile Country Gravy – yum!
If you do happen to try them, please leave a comment, and rate the recipe to let me know how they turned out for you!
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