These recipes are adapted from the Art Institute’s: On Cooking Textbook. These are from my notes and I will be revising the information as I do more research.
Blond Roux
In order to make a great sauce you need to start with a great roux. Basically a roux is a mixture of 50 percent fat and 50 percent flour. In class we will be using butter as our fat but when I lived in Louisiana they used lard. Roux’s will make your sauces thicker so you get something that will stick to your food instead of running off into a saucy mess. Each roux requires the butter to be melted in the pan then having the flour whisked in….lumps are bad! You just need to achieve a nice paste then you allow them to fluff and achieve the desired color. You’ll want to use a pot with high sides to do this. There are three different types of roux and the only difference between them is the length of time they are cooked.
White- A white roux is achieved by cooking the flour and butter mixture for 1-2 minutes.
Blond-A blond roux is achieved by cooking the flour and butter mixture for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Brown- A brown roux is achieved by cooking the flour and butter mixture for 10-12 minutes. Careful not to burn, stay brown my man, stay brown.
Each sauce that I will be showing you shortly will contain a roux with the exception of the Hollandaise and Tomato Sauce.
I will be adding pictures of these roux’s once I make them in class on Wednesday/Thursday.
I’m used to making the white roux. I’ll probably try the other two sometime.
Roux are indeed elemental. Though I have heard the three colors of roux also called stages 1, 2 and 3. GREG
I think they teach it by color so we can actually see the color we want but I have seen it referred as you said Greg. Thanks!
Eric
All I know is that good roux makes good Gumbo. So, Iguess if you master to make good roux then the rest is history.
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