A
roux is your go-to mixture for perfectly thick, lump-free sauces and is the
basis for five of the mother sauces of French cuisine.
It’s
such a basic technique that you won’t find a chef in a modern, pro kitchen that
doesn’t know how to make a perfect roux. In fact, it’s so well known that most
decent home cooks know how to make one, but not everyone knows there’s actually
different kinds of roux.
There’s
a classic white roux, there's a blonde roux, a caramelised, brown roux which is
used for cooking Cajun dishes like gumbo. There’s even a red roux with tomato
sauce added which is often used for thickening seafood dishes.
Classic White Roux
This
is for your white sauce aka béchamel and cheese sauces. White roux is normally
made using butter and regular white flour in equal parts. The butter is melted
on a very low heat as flour is stirred and removed from the heat as soon the
flour starts to bubble. The color should remain bright white as the flour is
barely heated in a classic white roux recipe. Many places opt for skipping
white entirely and using blonde roux as undercooked flour carries a stronger
flavor.
Blonde Roux
Also
made using butter and white flour but cooked a little longer so the flour
starts to blonde in color. This is the go-to roux for all your Velouté and
Espagnole sauces, it can actually be used in most of the mother sauces but be
aware that blonde roux will give more color to a sauce.
Brown/Dark Roux
The
flour in a brown roux is cooked for much longer which gives the final,
caramelized paste, a much nuttier, deeper flavor. Because the flour is cooked
for longe at higher temperatures, butter is often replaced for brown roux with
vegetable or peanut oil - fats with higher smoke points than butter.
The
dark Roux is said to have been developed in the French colonies and is
associated today with Cajun dishes such as Gumbo. It’s worth noting that the
more you cook the flour in the fat, the less thick the roux actually becomes.
Many people will add onions, peppers and celery directly to a roux in
preparation for gumbo.
Red Roux
The
Red Roux is essentially a blonde roux with tomato paste added and it’s usually
used to thicken seafood sauces like Bisque or Couvillion, some will also go the
red roux route for Gumbo.
By FDL