An easy staple to always have on hand is Roux. It is the most common thickening agent for your classic (French) sauces and hearty soups. You really don’t need a recipe in your box if you can just remember 1:1. Quite simply the ingredients are 1 pound butter to 1 pound flour. I know that many cooks do not weigh their flour, measuring instead with volumetric cups, but it is really the most accurate measurement technique. How a cook places their flour into a measuring cup varies greatly. The best technique is to loosely spoon it into a cup and then level it with a knife, making sure not to tamp the cup down. A packed cup of flour has more volume than a sifted or loosely filled cup, therein may lie a problem in many recipes not producing consistent results time after time. That was a little Baking 101 (to help with your Christmas cookies), so back to Sauces 101. You may remember Grandma thickening her sauces with cornstarch or flour with the addition of water, which indeed works and are both called a slurry, used for more opaque sauces and as a quick thickener, but remember that at some point the flour (gluten) will need to be “cooked out” or you will get a sticky sauce/gravy/soup. Most soups and traditional French sauces utilize roux, which is flour based, and is best if it is prepared ahead of time before your sauce/soup is ready to be thickened. Start by melting your butter in a heavy bottomed pot/pan over medium heat and then add the flour until incorporated (generally I will use a wooden spoon for this blending process, call me old fashioned, just don’t call me old, ha), then reduce the heat to low. You now have a white roux which can be used to thicken cream sauces such as Béchamel. If you continue to cook the mixture over low heat until it is golden and takes on the aroma of hazelnuts, you have now achieved what is called a blonde roux which is used to thicken most soups and velouté sauces. A little more browning and you have a brown roux which is used to thicken brown sauces such as French espagnole and Cajun étouffée. One more caviat: flour can vary even in its own weight due to humidity and brand production. Here’s a quick tip, you really don’t even need to measure this recipe…just add enough flour, spoonfulls at a time, to the melted butter until your mixture becomes the consistency of playdough and cook until it reaches the desired color. You can keep your roux on your counter for several days or in the fridge for up to several weeks if stored in an airtight container. (free additional tip: before you add roux to an item to be thickened, it helps keep the lumps out if you slightly heat the roux up first).
Roux
by Chef Cal DeMercurio
1 lb Butter, unsalted
1 lb All-Purpose Flour (approx. 3 ½ cups)
In shallow, heavy-bottom pan, melt butter over medium heat. Slowly add flour to butter until the consistency of playdough. Allow mixture to cook until it reaches the appropriate color for your soup/sauce, often to a light gold color for most applications. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
