The roux for sauce espagnole is browned to a light tan (known in French as roux), and roux for Cajun and Creole dishes are cooked to a dark chocolatey brown paste that can easily end up charred in the hands of an inexperienced cook. Béchamel sauces for lasagne or macaroni and cheese use a blonde-coloured “white roux”, cooked just long enough to eliminate the taste of raw flour. From there, the length of cooking time determines the darkness of the roux and thus the flavour of the final product. And second, when you combine the starch with a fat, each starch granule becomes coated in the fat. Heat up the fat over low heat, then stir in the flour until a paste forms. First, a roux is useful for cooking the raw flavor out of the starch, which leads to better flavor and aroma in the final dish. Traditional ratios call for equal parts fat and flour. The French colonists who resettled in America a century later took their roux to the extreme through browning, to achieve the deep nutty richness that has become characteristic of Cajun cooking.įrench cooking traditionally utilises butter, but in Cajun cooking, where the roux is cooked for much longer, oil, lard or bacon grease are favoured because they don’t burn as easily. The invention of the technique in the 17th century at the court of the Sun King was a true revolution in French - and thereby European - cuisine, with four out of the five Mother Sauces of classical French cooking based on a roux. A roux is a smooth paste, made from flour fried in fat, that is added to sauces, soups or gravy to make them thick, smooth and rich.
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