Big Beautiful Biscuits.....and Ham Salad

I made some rather tasty southern food today for the artist that I work for. I really dig it when I come up with something off the top of my head that gets a second and/or more request to be served again. What was especially cool about this one was that it was pretty recently that I made it the first time, and so I remembered exactly what I did to put it together.

It was Ham Salad. Though my employer (he's such a foodie) likes to call it "ham tapenade", I'm going to stick with Ham Salad. Hey, it's my blog and my recipe! So I served it on these cheddar chive biscuits that I so proudly made from scratch. I say that because to be quite honest, there are very few things I bake from scratch that I can actually say I'm proud of.

In fact, once while working for this artist/foodie, when I was putting something pastry in to the oven, someone passed through the kitchen and commented on how good it looked. I remember thinking to myself that looks can be very deceiving." Of course I would never undermine my culinary expertise or self confidence by saying such comments aloud in the presence of my artist/foodie employer, however, most chefs are strictly one side of the kitchen or the other. Meaning; hot food/cuisine, or baking and pastry. So yes, my side of the kitchen is definitely the food side. All the chefs I know (cuisine and pastry alike) have a strong preference one way or the other and are mostly only good on one side of the kitchen or the other. Sure, there are some chefs (kind of like bisexuals) who like to switch sides every now and then too, but this does not mean that they perform equally as well on both sides. I don't mean to say that the chef who excels at and enjoys working both sides of the kitchen does not exist, I only mean to say that it is very rarely seen.


Well, here's what I did with my Bi (just kidding) Biscuits & Ham Salad:

I mixed in with the chopped ham, some black and green olives, pimentos, shredded cheddar cheese (just a little), a little bit more chives just for good measure, some chopped up Texas Pete dill pickles, a drop or two of hot sauce, and a spoonful each of good Dijon mustard and mayo to get the salad to loosely hold together. Oh, and some fresh ground pepper. No salt, as the ham and olives are plenty salty.

I made the biscuits with full fat buttermilk and a drizzle of heavy cream for a looser dough that I dropped (not rolled & cut because I hate the extra step of the rolling and cutting, see I'm not a pastry person). Plus I think that the extra flour needed to roll and the actual cutting
makes tough biscuits. Sorry I can't tell you exact measurements (only baking and pastry people would do that), I just eyeball it and know how the dough needs to feel.