What Is Roux Used For

Mixture of flour and fat for thickening

A night roux in development

Roux () is flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces.^[1] Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight.^[2] The flour is added to the melted fat or oil on the stove peak, composite until smoothen, and cooked to the desired level of brownness. A roux tin can exist white, blond (darker) or brown. Butter, bacon drippings or lard are usually used fats. Roux is used as a thickening amanuensis for gravy, sauces, soups and stews. It provides the base of operations for a dish, and other ingredients are added subsequently the roux is consummate.

Uses [edit]

The fat is most often butter in French cuisine, just may exist lard or vegetable oil in other cuisines. Roux is used in three of the 5 mother sauces of classic French cooking: béchamel sauce, velouté sauce, and espagnole sauce.^[3]

In Cajun cuisine, roux is fabricated with lard, oil, or meat, poultry, or bacon drippings instead of butter. It is often cooked to a medium or dark brown color, which lends much richness of flavor, but makes it thinner.^[iv]

Central European cuisine often uses rendered lard or more recently vegetable oil instead of butter for the preparation of roux.^{[ citation needed ]}

Japanese curry karē ( カレー ) is fabricated from a roux fabricated by frying yellow curry pulverisation, butter or oil, and flour together; this is called karērū ( カレールー , curry roux).^{[ commendation needed ]}

Roux (meyane ^[5]) has been used in Ottoman and Turkish cuisine since at least the 15th century.^[6]

Methods [edit]

The fatty is heated in a pot or pan, melting it if necessary. Then the flour is added. The mixture is heated and stirred until the flour is incorporated, and so cooked until at least the point where a raw flour sense of taste is no longer apparent and the desired colour has been reached. The last color can range from well-nigh white to nearly blackness, depending on the length of time information technology is heated and its intended use. The stop consequence is a thickening and flavoring agent.

Roux is most oftentimes fabricated with butter equally the fat base of operations, but information technology may be fabricated with any edible fat. For meat gravies, fatty rendered from meat is oftentimes used. In regional American cuisine, bacon is sometimes rendered to produce fat to use in the roux. If clarified butter is not bachelor, vegetable oil is often used when producing night roux, since it does non burn at high temperatures, as whole butter would.

Types [edit]

Light (or "white") roux provides little flavor other than a characteristic richness to a dish, and is used in French cooking and some gravies or pastries throughout the globe.

Darker roux is fabricated past browning the flour in oil for a longer time and adds a distinct nutty flavor to a dish. They may be called "blond," "peanut-butter," "chocolate-brown," or "chocolate" roux depending on their color. The darker the color, the richer the season.

Swabian (southwest German) cooking uses a darker roux for its "brown broth" ( braune Brühe ), which, in its simplest form, consists of nothing more than than lard, flour, and water, with a bay leafage and salt for seasoning.^{[ citation needed ]} Dark roux is often fabricated with vegetable oils, which have a higher smoke point than butter, and are used in Cajun and Creole cuisine for gumbos and stews. The darker the roux, the less thickening power information technology has; a chocolate roux has near one-fourth the thickening ability, by weight, of a white roux. A very dark roux, just shy of burning and turning black, has a distinctly ruby color and is sometimes referred to as "brick" roux.^[7]

In Hungary, roux (rántás) is almost ever made with paprika and is the basis of several dishes, including főzelék (vegetable stew) and soups. It may also be prepared with onions and garlic.^[eight] ^[nine]

Cretan staka [edit]

Staka ( στάκα ) is a type of roux item to Cretan cuisine. It is prepared by cooking sheep's milk cream over a depression flame with wheat flour or starch: the poly peptide-rich part of the butterfat coagulates with the flour or starch and forms the staka proper, which is served hot. It is more often than not eaten past dipping staff of life in it, occasionally served over French chips.

The fatty part separates to class stakovoutyro, staka butter, which is kept for later use and has a faint cheesy flavor. Staka butter is used in Cretan pilaf (piláfi), unremarkably served at weddings.

Alternatives [edit]

Cooks can substitute for roux by calculation a mixture of cold water and wheat flour to a dish that needs thickening, since the oestrus of boiling water volition release the starch from the flour; however, this temperature is not loftier enough to eliminate the floury taste. A mixture of water and flour used in this manner is colloquially known as "cowboy roux", and in modern cuisine information technology is called a white launder. Information technology is used infrequently in eating house cooking, since it imparts a flavor to the finished dish that a traditional haute cuisine chef would consider unacceptable. Cornflour (known as cornstarch in the Us) tin can be used instead of wheat flour. Since less is needed to thicken, it imparts less of the raw flour taste, and it also makes the final sauce shinier.

As an alternative to roux, which is high in fat and very energy-dumbo, some Creole chefs have experimented with toasting flour without oil in a hot pan as an add-on to gumbo. Cornstarch mixed with water (slurry), arrowroot, and other agents can be used in place of roux as well. These items practise not contribute to the flavor of a dish, and are used solely for thickening liquids. More recently, many chefs have turned to a group of naturally occurring chemicals known equally hydrocolloids. In add-on to being flavorless and possessing the ability to act equally a thickening agent, the resulting texture is thought by some to be superior,^{[ commendation needed ]} and only a small amount is required for the desired effect.

See likewise [edit]

Beurre manié
Chowder
Étouffée
Rubaboo
Water roux

References [edit]

^ "roux Definition". Cambridge English Dictionary . Retrieved 2017-02-eighteen .
^ Berolzheimer, Ruth (1942). The American Woman's Cook Book. New York: Garden Metropolis Publishing. p. 307.
^ "An Introduction to the 5 French Female parent Sauces". Escoffier Online. 2020-09-01. Retrieved 2022-05-28 .
^ Wuerthner, Terri Pischoff (2006). "First You lot Brand a Roux". Gastronomica. half dozen (4): 64–68. doi:ten.1525/gfc.2006.6.iv.64. ISSN 1529-3262.
^ "Türk Dil Kurumu". tdk.gov.tr . Retrieved 2019-05-10 .
^ Muhammed bin Mahmûd-ı Şirvânî (2005). fifteen. yüzyıl Osmanlı mutfağı. Gökkubbe. ISBN978-975-6223-84-0.
^ Alton Brown (1999-08-25). "Gravy Confidential". Good Eats. Season 1. Episode 108. Food Network. (transcript).
^ Edit Fél, Tamás Hofer (1997). Arányok és mértékek a paraszti gazdálkodásban (in Hungarian). Balassi Kiadó. p. 240. ISBN9789635061075.
^ "rántás". GasztroABC. Retrieved 2020-11-19 .

Farther reading [edit]

Folse, John D. (2004). The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine. Gonzales, LA: Chef John Folse & Company. ISBN0-9704457-one-7. LCCN 2003108987. OCLC 57363882. OL 3697641M. Troubleshooting roux (p. 130) Oil-based roux (pp. 130–131), Butter roux: the classical and Creole roux (pp. 132–133). Includes color illustrations and recipes.
Wuerthner, Terri Pischoff (November 2006). "Beginning You Make a Roux". Gastronomica. 6 (four): 64–68. doi:10.1525/gfc.2006.6.4.64. JSTOR 10.1525/gfc.2006.6.4.64. Distinguishes history of classical French, Creole, and Cajun varieties of roux, with color illustrations of blond, peanut butter, and chocolate roux and detailed oil-based recipe, variations of proportions, chemical science, and storage techniques. Definitive.