9 April, 2020
Make a Roux!
The basis of most sauces, the thing that thickens most sauces, is called a roux. Many recipes will start with “make a roux” and just go on from there. Don’t be intimidated. A roux is nothing more than flour and fat cooked to varying degrees of darkness.
A typical white roux is made with equal parts flour and butter (for the fat). In a sauce pan, melt the butter and then whisk in the flour. Don’t let the butter brown or you will get a darker roux than intended. Cook the roux until all of the water is cooked out of the butter and the roux is a nice paste consistency. You are basically just cooking the flour enough to make it edible. Cook it a little longer to make a blonde roux.
To make a darker roux, you just cook it longer. But for anything other than a blond or other pale roux, you won’t want to use butter as your fat. It has a tendency to burn and become bitter. For darker roux, use a vegetable oil for the fat.
To make a basic dark roux, use about 3/4 of a cup of cooking oil (canola, vegetable, etc) with about 1 cup of flour. For a dark roux, heat the oil up hot. You don’t want it to start smoking, but you want it just about there. When the oil is hot, whisk the flour in (to avoid clumps) and then lower the heat to medium. Darker roux (plural) will require a lot of stirring to avoid any of the flour burning on the bottom of the pot. I find it best to use a porcelain coated cast iron dutch oven to make dark roux. If you see any black bits floating in your roux, it is burnt. Throw it out and start over. You can’t save it. As you continue to cook and stir the roux, it will slowly get darker. You can have a peanut butter colored roux all the way to a dark chocolate colored roux.
The darker the roux, the stronger the flavor. But also, the darker the roux, the less thickening power the roux will have. As you continue to cook down the flour, it loses its ability to thicken your sauces.
A finished roux can be made ahead of time. You can keep it in the refrigerator for up to a month. You can also freeze it and keep it for up to 6 months.