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Roux Brown and White for Thickening
1 pound 2 ounces of flour 1 pound of butter See that the flour is thoroughly dry, and then sift it. Squeeze the butter in a cloth to remove all moisture. Now put the butter in an enameled stewpan, and let it stand on the stove until it runs to oil. It is necessary to heat the oiled butter so that the scum will rise, but care must be taken that it does not get too hot. When all the scum has been removed, the stewpan should be put in a cooler part of the stove, so that the sediment may settle. Skim off the froth very carefully, and pour the oil in a basin, leaving the sediment at the bottom of the stewpan. Remove the sediment from the stewpan, and pour back the oil--now clarified butter--and sprinkle in the flour gradually, stirring all the time. Put the stewpan on a slow fire, turned low, and stir continually with a wooden spoon. Keep scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent mixture burning; be very careful about the scraping or the stirring, or the roux will be spoiled. As soon as the mixture begins to color a very little, put half of it into a jar for white roux. It must not turn more than a cream color, as it is intended to thicken white soups and white sauces. Now return the saucepan to the fire, and continue the stirring and scraping until the remaining roux has become a bright brown. Be careful that it does not get too dark; a light chocolate color is the correct shade. Immediately the roux is dark enough, remove it from the stove at once, but continue stirring for some minutes, as enameled stewpans retain the heat after they have been removed from the fire, and the mixture would burn if the stirring was discontinued at once. Have ready a large slice of onion, and throw it into the roux, if there is any fear that it is getting too dark; this checks the heat at once. This is brown roux for thickening brown soups and gravies. It will keep for weeks, and although the process seems rather troublesome, it really in the end saves time. In using the roux it is best to scrape off the quantity you require with a spoon, and not add it to the soups and sauces in a lump.
A make-ahead thickener in the classic French manner: clarified butter and flour cooked to two stages, one pale and one brown, then stored and shaved off as needed. The quantities are professional-scale and the method assumes a coal range, but nothing here is difficult once the proportions are scaled.
- Scale it down1 lb 2 oz flour to 1 lb butter is over four cups of finished roux, enough for a hotel kitchen. A quarter batch (4 1/2 oz flour, 4 oz butter) is ample for domestic use and keeps the same ratio.
- Why the butter is clarifiedSqueezing, melting, skimming and decanting removes water and milk solids. The solids are what scorch and speck a long-cooked brown roux, so this step is not fussiness; it is what lets the flour go to chocolate colour cleanly. Commercial ghee is a close stand-in, though it is cooked further and carries a nuttier flavour of its own.
- Enameled stewpanRead this as a heavy-bottomed saucepan. The book's warning is sound: enamel over iron holds heat, so a roux carried to the brown stage keeps cooking off the burner. Stir for a minute or two after you pull it, or decant it into a cold bowl.
- Heat level"A slow fire, turned low" means genuinely low, around medium-low on a gas hob. A white roux needs only 3 to 5 minutes to lose its raw smell; brown roux at this ratio will take 20 to 40 minutes of near-constant stirring.
- Colour stagesPale cream for white soups and veloutes, light chocolate for brown sauces and gravies. Past light chocolate the flour's starch is degraded and thickening power drops sharply; the book's own stated reason for stopping is simply that a light chocolate colour is the correct shade.
- The onion trickDropping in a slice of onion to arrest the browning presumably works because the moisture in the onion absorbs heat and boils off. A splash of cold stock or simply tipping the roux into a cold metal bowl does the same thing more reliably; a modern cook usually just removes the pan.
- StorageButter roux was kept for weeks in a cold larder. Refrigerate it in a sealed jar, where it will hold a month or more, or freeze it. Scraping off spoonfuls rather than adding a lump, as the book says, is right: shavings disperse without lumping.
- How much to useReckon roughly 2 level tablespoons of this roux per cup of liquid for a sauce of coating consistency, and less for soup. Whisk it into hot but not boiling liquid, then simmer at least 5 minutes so the starch fully swells and the floury taste goes.
Roux held as a prepared store, made in bulk and drawn on all week, is a fixture of nineteenth-century professional French cooking, where a brown roux underpinned espagnole and the pale one veloute and bechamel. The insistence on clarified butter and slow browning follows the line of Careme and Escoffier, and English and American household manuals reproduced the method.