ROUX

“As for butter vs. margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.”  Joan Gussow

Simply put, I love sauces. Do not get me wrong, food in general can be amazing however there is something about a sauce that leaves an imprint in my memory. When I sit back and think of the best things I have ever eaten there always seems to be a sauce affixed to it!

Gravies and sauces thickened with starches be it corn, potato, tapioca or arrowroot all leave me wanting.  While they can assist in producing a lower calorie and arguably more healthy gravy or sauce I usually leave them to others to serve.  I normally use flour and fat in a roux. I will use corn starch once in a while if I am rushed, or more often than not, when I’m lazy, and while I am chronically lazy, I am not a chronic corn starch user.  But starches do have their place, just not in the turkey, beef or pork gravy, and never, never, never, never in a gumbo or etouffee!

For truly great gravies and sauces, the thickener and the substance that gives the sauce that wonderful silky texture is a flour based roux.  Now roux is another fancy French word used in cooking that translated means “reddish/brown” or simply “reddish”. To make sexy sauces worthy of being food porn you need to learn, you MUST learn how to make a roux.  It is easy enough to do that even a novice like me has been able to master it, more or less. So read on and enjoy the ride and remember, please keep your hands in the cart at all times….
I hope we can agree that roux is the building block of great sauces, the foreplay of the sauce if you will.  Not all sauces need to be thickened and if you have the time and all things required, (bones, vegetables, time, roasting oven) you can make a world class sauce by preparing a demi-glace and reducing it to thicken, then use it as a gravy, but it won’t render enough for a family who likes to swim the potatoes in the gravy unless you make a huge batch, which is unlikely in a home kitchen.  Demi-glace as I know it is better tasting than thickened gravy I agree, but if the gravy is properly made, it only wins by a narrow margin. I will wax poetic about demi-glace at a later date.

Ok, back to the roux and there will be a test on this later so pay attention. There are different stages of color that occur when making your roux, from white, to blond, to peanut butter to dark chocolate brown, and all brownish shades in between.  Depending on the recipe or the sauce you are preparing the color is very important as it adds a deeper and nuttier flavor to the sauce the darker it gets.  For thickening a chicken or turkey gravy I use a dark blond roux to a light brown color because I don’t like yellow or white gravy. For pork I take the roux a little darker yet – to a medium brown color and for beef I like a dark mahogany brown. For cheese sauces I will stick to a white roux because who the hell wants brown cheese sauce? Just the thought of a brown cheese sauce makes me cringe. So blond roux it is.

From the white stage through to the dark brown stage, the roux will thicken any liquid or stock you use it in, however, the darker the roux the less thickening ability it has so you will need to use more roux to achieve the consistency you need the darker it gets. Are you still with me? No?  Okay… 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 tablespoons of fat (butter or oil) will thicken 1 cup of stock when it is a blond roux.  To thicken one cup of stock with a very dark brown roux you may need to use 3 tablespoons of flour and 3 tablespoons of fat to achieve the same consistency as 2+2 in the blonde

roux.  Do you get it now, blonde has more power than brunette, and all this time you may have questioned why blondes have more fun.  It’s all about the power of roux!

There are as many opinions about the correct proportions of fat to flour as there are experts offering opinions, and being yet another opinionated expert, I will offer you mine, because, well, it is my blog after all. I use equal parts of fat to flour by volume. Not weight! The type of fat to use also gets the same experts offering opinions about fat type as they did on the flour/fat ratio and I prefer to use clarified butter and sometimes 50/50 clarified butter/grape seed oil.  You can use 100% grape seed or canola oil, however I do not recommend using olive oil, and I can guarantee the taste will not be to your liking!

When using butter remember or be reminded if you have forgotten, or pay attention if you did not know, that not all butter is created equal. Butter whether salted or unsalted can vary greatly in the amount of milk solids it contains and milk solids contain water and water and flour can mean lumps and lumps in gravy or sauce are not a good thing. Depending on the dairy that made the butter, you can get inconsistent results if you don’t clarify the butter, so to clarify; you need to clarify your butter for the best and most consistent result. Clarified butter is butter that has had the milk solids and water removed. The advantage to using clarified butter is that it has a much higher smoke point than regular butter which allows you to cook with it at a higher temperature without it browning and/or burning. Another wonderful advantage to clarified butter is that it can be kept much longer without going bad.

There are several ways to clarify butter so pay attention! Under low heat let the butter melt and allow it to sit for a while to separate. Skim off the foam that has risen to the top and gently pour the butter off of the milk solids that have settled to the bottom of the pan. Another more involved method is to simmer the butter in a saucepan until the mixture separates.  After the water has evaporated the milk solids will start to fry in the clear butter fat. When they begin to turn golden, remove the pan from the heat and pour the butter through a fine strainer lined with a damp cheesecloth into a heat proof container. The cheesecloth must be damp or the butter will be absorbed by the cheesecloth. A stick (8 tablespoons) of butter will produce about 6 tablespoons of clarified butter.

If you are not adventurous enough to clarify your own butter, you can purchase clarified butter at a gourmet grocery store or better yet at an Indian or Middle Eastern grocery store under the name Ghee.

 You could argue on and on about the type of fat to use and the fat/flour ratio and if settled you will then end up arguing about the best flour type to use.  I use all purpose flour, but some will suggest that bread flour or a high gluten flour like a Tipo 00 is best, even the celiacs chime in about using rice flour and the vegans no doubt have an opinion too. Use all purpose flour or rice flour for the gluten free variety if necessary and enjoy. It really does work well.  BUT the flour issue is not settled yet…..

When using a ratio of 50/50 by volume of fat to flour it works well for the most part but depending on how compact the flour is it can alter the amount of oil needed.  By compact I mean has it settled and now a cup of compacted flour will weigh more than a cup of sifted flour.  Understand what I am talking ’bout Willis? If you take a cup of flour and press down on it with the back of a spoon it will decrease in volume, likewise, simply vibrating the container will cause the volume to contract, so here is the issue with volume measurement with dry ingredients: they can vary considerably in a weight/volume comparison.

The fix is to be ready to add a bit of oil a little at a time as you incorporate the ingredients to ensure it is not too dry, but not a liquid slurry either.  When mixed in the pan being cooked up, it should have a cookie dough-like (paste) consistency but there is a trick to that as well.  If you are making a roux and want to get it to chocolate brown color to use in a gumbo or etouffee you will need to add more fat to get it to be a wet roux (slack roux) as that allows it to cover the bottom of the pot easily as you stir it.  Once it has turned close to the color you want, add a bit of uncooked flour to get it to the cookie dough/paste-like stage and then cook it until it has reached the final color you are seeking.

You do this because as I said previously, (there may be a test on this later) the darker the color of the roux the less able it is to thicken the liquid, so freshly added flour acts like adding a bit of blond roux, and with it wet as I said, it is easier to mix in the pot when needing to cook for a longer period of time.  You do need to know that you should not add the liquid to a wet or slack roux because it could “break” and at that point you end up with a BP like oil slick on your creation and it will not thicken properly either. Like all things from riding a bike to making love, making roux is no exception; practice makes perfect. 

So what do we have so far?

Fat:
-butter
-clarified butter (preferred)
-olive oil
-grape seed oil
-canola oil
-mixture of all the above
-NEVER USE MARGARINE!!!!!  EVER!!!!!

Flour:
-all purpose (preferred)
-bread flour
-cake flour
-00 flour
-rice flour

Fat-Flour Ratio:
-50/50 by weight
-50/50 by volume (preferred)
-2 to 1 flour to fat
-2 to 1 fat to flour
-Screw it; The “this is too complicated let’s order take out ratio” (a very popular one in many homes)

Using the “recipe” for each cup of liquid to be thickened use 2 tablespoons each of fat and flour.  Place in a shallow flat bottom pan and over medium heat, whisk together and continue stirring until the color has reached the desired color for the dish you are making. Match the roux color to the color of the intended base liquid.  Think of it as the carpet matching the drapes type scenario!  Unless of course the drapes are paired with hardwood but that is another story or blog all together.

Once the desired color has been achieved, remove from heat and let cool slightly before adding liquid.  I prefer to slightly warm any liquid before I add it to my roux. Do not use hot roux as it can break and not blend well and all diners will be disappointed if that happens because flour lumps are nasty, just plain nasty. The roux can be cold to warm, but never hot. You can make a large batch of roux and place any excess in the fridge to use at a later date.  It keeps for a week or so and comes in very handy when cooking after work when time is at a premium.

I am confident that I have confused you enough to toss another challenge at you and that would be to use your new-found roux making skill in the creation and enjoyment of a wonderful etouffee.  The making of this incredible comfort food is reason enough alone to learn to make roux, not to mention all the gravies you can excel at as well once you are a Roux master. 

This recipe usually calls for ¼ cup of oil but I think the nuttiness of the butter based roux adds a tastier and warmer dimension to this already incredible dish. Just wait until you start smelling this roux throughout your house!

CHICKEN AND ANDOUILLE ETOUFFEE

1 ½ sticks of clarified butter
3/4 cup flour sifted
1 ribs of celery, finely chopped and 1 carrot peeled and finely chopped
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped
2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. freshly ground white pepper
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
3 cups chicken stock or seafood stock
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1″ pieces
1 lb. andouille sausage, halved lengthwise and cut crosswise into 1/2″-thick pieces
Cooked white rice, for serving

1. Heat butter in a 6-qt. Dutch oven over medium-high heat until it melts. Add flour, whisking constantly, and cook for 1 minute. Reduce heat to medium and cook, whisking constantly, until roux is the color of milk chocolate, about 12–15 minutes. Add celery, onions, and peppers, and cook, stirring constantly, until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in salt, cayenne, black and white pepper, basil, and thyme, and cook about 1 minute more. Add 2 cups chicken stock, and bring to a boil; cook until thickened, about 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat butter in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, and cook, turning once, until lightly browned, 4–6 minutes; transfer chicken to a plate and add andouille and cook 3-4 minutes. Add andouille, butter to Dutch oven. Pour remaining chicken stock into skillet, stir to scrape up any browned bits, and then pour into Dutch oven along with chicken; cook, stirring occasionally, until thick and chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes more. Remove pan from heat and serve étouffée with rice.

Special thanks to Bart Boos (http://bartboos.blogspot.com/)