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Brown Sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons Gold Medal flour 2 cups stock 1/2 slice onion 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains pepper Brown the onion in butter; remove onion and stir butter until well browned. Add flour mixed with seasonings and brown, then add stock gradually. Cook until smooth.
A plain brown roux sauce, of the kind kept on hand in a household kitchen to serve over fish, croquettes or leftover meat. The whole thing hinges on how far you take the butter and flour.
- Browning the butterButter browns at the point where its milk solids toast, and it goes from nutty to burnt in well under a minute. Work over medium heat and pull it the moment it smells like hazelnuts; scorched butter cannot be rescued and will make the finished sauce bitter.
- The onion is for flavour onlyA half slice of onion, browned and discarded, leaves a faint sweetness behind. Do not let it blacken in the fat, or that bitterness carries into the sauce even after the onion is out.
- How dark the flour should goCook the flour in the fat until it is the colour of dry sand or light peanut butter, three to five minutes with constant stirring. Darker roux thickens less, so a very brown one will give you a thinner sauce than the proportions suggest.
- StockTwo cups of stock. A quarter teaspoon of salt for two cups is light seasoning, which suggests the stock was not expected to be salty; taste before adding it if you are using a commercial broth.
- Adding the liquidStock added in small amounts, whisked smooth each time, avoids lumps; if lumps do form, a whisk or a brief pass with an immersion blender fixes it.