Real Aphrodisiacs for Valentine's
Making Chocolate from Wild Cacao
How to Make a Marshmallow Pop
Valentine Gifts for the Five Senses
McBites = Modern McNuggets?
Sausage Recipes of the Month
Making Roux
A nutty-flavored thickener used in New Orleans–style dishes
Roux is not hard to make. I repeat: Roux is not hard to make. A tasty, nutty-flavored thickener used in gumbo and several other New Orleans–style dishes, like crawfish étouffée, it’s made by heating equal parts fat (usually vegetable oil) and flour, and browning the mixture on the stove. For gumbo,
- Shrimp and Okra Gumbo with Tasso
- Chicken and Andouille Gumbo
- Gumbo Z’herbes
- JAZZ STANDARD: Gumbo is the ultimate improvisational dish
the roux is typically cooked until it’s the color of dark chocolate: Although darker roux thickens less than lighter, it is richer tasting.
When making roux, you must stir it constantly or it will burn. It has the reputation of being tricky because people either stop stirring it or do the opposite: They’re so worried about it burning that they don’t turn the heat up high enough, and it never browns. If you keep the pan nice and hot and don’t stop stirring, you will not have a problem.
Roux doesn’t gain anything from slow cooking, and some people make it in as few as five minutes by turning the heat way up and stirring at a frenzied pace. However, this is not for the faint of heart.
“It’s too tense a process for my nerves. Also, roux that splashes on your skin goes all the way to the bone,” says New Orleans cookbook writer and radio host Tom Fitzmorris. More likely your roux will take 25 to 40 minutes to turn chocolate brown. Richard Stewart, owner and chef at the Gumbo Shop in New Orleans, recommends making and burning a “sacrificial roux” so that you’ll know what failure looks like. (Let it cool before you dump it in the trash!)
Flour and fat …
peanut butter color …
to milk chocolate …
to dark chocolate
Pay close attention: When you first stir the flour into the oil, it will bubble as it releases its moisture. When it stops bubbling it will begin to toast as you stir, first turning the color of peanut butter, then the color of milk chocolate, then the color of dark chocolate. Have your “trinity” of onions, celery, and bell pepper cut up ahead of time so you’re ready to throw it in the pan when the roux reaches your desired hue. The vegetables will halt further cooking of the flour-and-oil mixture.
Are there shortcuts? Not really. Some restaurant chefs make roux in an oven, taking it out and stirring it every so often, then saving it until it’s ready to use. (Roux keeps in a jar for months in a cool place.) Some modern Cajuns have tried making it in the microwave (risky—it catches on fire) and others use store-bought. Savoie’s dark roux in a jar is a common fixture in Southern Louisiana grocery stores, and powdered roux by Tony Chachere’s is also widely used (add it to the gumbo like you would add flour to a gravy). But you can’t beat the nutty aroma of home-cooked roux, or the adrenaline high that comes from successfully not burning it.
Louisana roux was traditionally made with lard. Today we know about low density lipids and peanut oil is next prefered because it's the closest taste to lard based roux. But any vegtable oil can be used. Don't use olive oil or butter. They will burn at the hight heat of our roux. Use an iron skillet with flared sides to make stirring easier and use a pan big enough so that roux is less than half...+READ
Louisana roux was traditionally made with lard. Today we know about low density lipids and peanut oil is next prefered because it's the closest taste to lard based roux. But any vegtable oil can be used. Don't use olive oil or butter. They will burn at the hight heat of our roux. Use an iron skillet with flared sides to make stirring easier and use a pan big enough so that roux is less than half filling. Use a wisk or hard wood spoon to stir. Today we use equal parts of fat and flour by volume. You can also use more flour than fat. In the old days measure was by weigh which would give a greater volume of flour than fat. Start your roux with heating the fat. Grap a cold beer, we used to drink Jax, crank up some zideco and dance with your favorite girl. By about the time you danced to a waltz and a two-step, your oil shouldl be smoking. Add the flour in thirds and stir to mix before adding more. It will bubble because of moisture and remember the flour up North is heavier than Southern flour so it will cook slower. Your flour may also lump up but that will smooth out when stirring. Dark roux is traditional for water based meats and ham as in gumbo, but taste is personal. So pick a taste (color) you like. Black is hard to make so don't try it until your an experience roux maker. Dark brown is certainly suitable for gumbo. Remember, Louisiana cooking is personal, not like tranditional French that is by the numbers. If your roux gets ahead of you, take it off the fire and stir until it's under control. Try for thirty minutes your first few times and then knock off five until you can produce one in fifteen. Most home stoves can't make roux faster than that because the fire isn't hot enough. If you get black specs in your roux, you've burned it. And the taste is bitter. Start over. C’est la vie!
Bons Temps Rouler-COLLAPSE
I've been making roux for over 45 years for bechamel, or whatever, plus for gumbos, very successfully. I just watched the video for making a New Orleans roux telling why to add the vegetables at different times. I always have my homemade shrimp broth in the freezer, but never knew about adding the veg at different times - thank you.
WTF? Any time I've ever made a roux (for a bechamel) I've used flour and butter, and it's taken about 5 minutes of stirring to cook out the flour taste.
This is just something completely different
I think Sheron and I took the same cooking course (conducted by an enormous ex-NFL lineman, whose name I can't recall). His technique of browning the flour in a skillet first has never failed me, and I have never had a problem making roux.
>>place the dry flour in a roasting pan, stirring occasionally with a whisk until the color is uniformly tan. <
How long does this process usually take?
In the restaurant we used to 'cheat' by pre-roasting the flour at around 375º until it gets a light tan in color with a nutty aroma: place the dry flour in a roasting pan , stirring occasionally with a whisk until the color is uniformly tan. Since all of the moisture has been removed, it's necessary to sift the flour through a very fine sifter to remove the clumps, or whompulate it in a food...+READ
In the restaurant we used to 'cheat' by pre-roasting the flour at around 375º until it gets a light tan in color with a nutty aroma: place the dry flour in a roasting pan , stirring occasionally with a whisk until the color is uniformly tan. Since all of the moisture has been removed, it's necessary to sift the flour through a very fine sifter to remove the clumps, or whompulate it in a food processor. Once roasted it can be frozen in a resealable plastic bag, so we would do a big batch and just pull it out when we doing a Ponchatrain sauce, gumbo, etc. When you start with pre-roasted flour it takes only minutes to get it to the desired degree of brown, but you have to be very vigilant, as it will turn color rapidly. As for the lube in the pan for the roux, clarified duck fat makes the ultimate roux, but a little filtered bacon fat never hurts either. If using butter, be sure you use clarified butter. mick-COLLAPSE
I use a little more oil than flour. If I'm making a big pot of gumbo, I'll use 1/4 c. oil and just slightly less than 1/4 c. flour (both measured in a dry measure cup). And it is KEY to have all your veggies chopped and ready to go before you start making your roux. If you stop and remove it from the heat in order to cut up your veggies or meat, it does something to the consistency of the roux.
At a cooking school in New Orleans, our chef instructed us to brown the flour in the oven. Much less stressful and less inclined to burn. Use a rimmed pan and keep the flour away from the edges. No fat was added.
Equal parts of fat and flour....equal by weight or volume? Also, if you're using butter, which is not 100% fat, is there a different measurement to use?
Roux is standard French technique (recipes 13-15 in the common edition of the _Guide Culinaire_ -- the oven method was also recommended there by Escoffier) and central to French "Foundation" sauces. Adapted, like so many things, in New Orleans (which makes a darker style, and uses different fats). Cooking starch without water converts it to the more flavorful (and digestible) dextrin. An...+READ
Roux is standard French technique (recipes 13-15 in the common edition of the _Guide Culinaire_ -- the oven method was also recommended there by Escoffier) and central to French "Foundation" sauces. Adapted, like so many things, in New Orleans (which makes a darker style, and uses different fats). Cooking starch without water converts it to the more flavorful (and digestible) dextrin. An important sauce shortcut in industrial food processing is to make dextrin separately, and use it for sauces. That even is done at home in some old traditions, and also nicknamed "roux." (Incidentally there was a long discussion of French vs. Louisiana roux practices in the 1980s on the original Internet food forum.)-COLLAPSE