SCOTT PEACOCK'S BUTTERMILK BISCUITS

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 500 degrees with rack in upper third. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add lard and coat well with flour mixture. Working quickly, rub the lard between your fingertips until roughly half is coarsely blended and half remains in large flat pieces, about 3/4 inch in size.
• Make a well in the center of the flour-lard mixture, and add buttermilk all at once. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon, just until mixture is blended and begins to come together into a sticky dough. (The dough will not form a ball at this stage and will, in fact, look unpromising.)
• Immediately turn out dough onto a generously floured surface. With well-floured hands, knead briskly 8 to 10 times, just until a cohesive ball of dough forms. With your palms, gently flatten dough to an even thickness; then roll out to a 3/4-inch thickness, working from center of dough outward with a floured rolling pin. (Flour rolling pin as needed, but avoid flouring top of dough unless you want dusty biscuits.)
• Dip a dinner fork in flour, and pierce dough completely through at 1/2-inch intervals. Flour a 3-inch biscuit cutter, and stamp out rounds as close together as possible, taking care not to twist cutter. Place rounds 1/2 inch apart on a parchment-lined heavy baking sheet. Place dough pieces that remain after cutting on baking sheet, too. Bake biscuits until crusty and rich golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove biscuits from oven and brush with melted butter. Serve hot.