Mention Red Lobster to me, and two things come to mind: one, how their all-you-can-eat-crab leg campaign in the early 2000s shifted the global market on snow crab and nearly bankrupted the company, and two, their cheddar bay biscuits. While the international economic impacts and social implications of deal seekers eating up the restaurant group's profits is extremely interesting, it’s probably best that no one revisits the all-you-can-eat-crab campaign again. The biscuits, on the other hand, are worth a second look.

I’m not generally a fan of corporate menus. I find them soulless and dumbed down, but one thing these culinary behemoths excel in is food engineering. Test kitchens tinker and experiment with recipes and concepts until they get the results they want, more lab-like than à la minute cooking, but sometimes they crush it. Cheddar bay biscuits are a prime example of this.

Cheesy, garlicky, flaky, and fatty. Nailed it. The biscuits are probably the best reason to ever step foot in a Red Lobster, maybe the only good reason. Because I would rather spend my time on a boat looking for tasty sea creatures, I make my own version of these biscuits.

This version is a little surf and turf, utilizing duck fat in place of the butter usually found in biscuit recipes. This adds a layer of savory flavor that is subtle but distinct. If you don’t have duck fat, bear fat will work as well.

These biscuits take less than 10 minutes to prep, the only tricky part has to do with the duck fat. Duck fat is softer than butter at room temperature, which means you want to put the fat in the freezer before cutting it into the flour. This will prevent the fat from melting and blending into the flour. Your goal here, and any recipe that calls for cutting in cold butter, is to create pockets of fat in the dough. These little clumps of fat will create flakes that give good biscuits their distinct texture.

Measure out the duck fat and throw it in the freezer at least 30 minutes before you make the biscuits. Other than that, this is a simple recipe. Combine dry ingredients, cut in fat, add milk and cheese, and bake. I recommend using a silicone baking sheet or some other type of liner, the cheese has a habit of baking itself onto the sheet pan otherwise.