Roux the Day

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/foodanddrink/sns-fdcook2-wk2,0,3215140.story

So, I tend to have trouble with my sauces. I've taken advice from a million people and they still end up lumpy. Nothing seems to help, I'm just a hopeless case. Oh well.

I got this article from the LA Times... who got it from the Chicago Tribune. If your sauces need help, like mine, I hope it's useful!

As always, I would really love to hear from anybody that tries one of the recipes from my blog! Please let me know what you think!
Thanks,
MissMouse

From the Chicago Tribune
Roux the Day
Versatile base lends itself to myriad sauces and soups

Chicago Tribune
It's a given that pretty much everything is improved by the addition of a sauce. It's why we put ketchup on burgers and hot sauce on eggs. Good sauces cling to food, which means they must have body. There are many ways to achieve this, including today's classic, roux.

Why you need to learn this: In truth, roux thickened sauces went out of fashion with the advent of "nouvelle cuisine" back in the '70s. Still, fashion requires neither usefulness nor inherent quality (remember leisure suits?), and knowing how to make and use roux allows you to create magnificent sauces for meat, fish, poultry and vegetables.

The steps you take: Roux is nothing more than equal parts by weight of fat -- n the form of butter, oil or animal fats -- and flour. Flour is mostly starch, and starch is composed of tiny granules that swell when dissolved in water (or stock or milk, etc.). When the water is heated, the granules swell even more, and chains of molecules form webs that trap the water, thickening the liquid. This process is called gelatinization.

What you don't want to do is add straight flour to a hot liquid. The flour clumps and the starch on the outside of the clumps gelatinize, preventing the granules on the inside from dissolving. This gives us the dreaded lumpy sauce. In a roux, the individual granules are coated with fat, which allows them to dissolve without clumping.

Other ways to incorporate flour include the slurry, in which flour is dissolved in cold water and then poured slowly into hot liquid, and beurre manier, an uncooked paste of flour and whole butter which is whisked into a hot liquid.

What sets roux apart from the slurry and beurre manier is the fact that it's cooked. In French cuisine, roux is cooked to one of three stages: white, blond and brown. (New Orleans cuisine has even more shadings, including red and black.) The longer the cooking period, the darker the roux.

Cooking the roux has two main benefits. First, it gets rid of the raw, starchy flavor of the flour. Second (and this is with darker roux), it adds color to a dish. Thus, white and blond roux are used for light colored sauces and brown roux is used for darker sauces.

One further result of cooking is that ultimately it reduces the thickening power. It can take up to three times the amount of dark brown roux as white roux to thicken the same amount of liquid. In general, 1 ounce of white or blond roux will thicken 1 cup of liquid.

And now, directions for what will give you about 1 cup of roux:

1. Set a small, heavy saucepan (don't use aluminum or your roux may turn gray) over a medium heat. When it's hot, add 1 stick (8 Tbsps.) butter.

2. When the butter stops foaming, whisk in 1/2 cup. Don't worry if your measurements are not exact. Err on the side of too much flour and you'll be fine. You want the mixture to be moist and somewhat solid, not runny.

3. Continue whisking until the roux is done. For a white roux, this will be only a few minutes. Blond roux takes more like 5 to 10 minutes, and brown roux can take up to 20 minutes. For brown roux, constant whisking is not necessary, but do take care not to let it burn.

Incorporating roux into a sauce can be troublesome, but with practice you'll be able to do it without any lumps. In general, whisk cool (not icy cold) liquid into hot (not too hot or the fat will spatter) roux or whisk room temperature roux into hot liquid. Bring the sauce to a simmer; let it go for about 20 minutes to cook out the starchy taste.

Veloute

Prep time: 2 minutes
Cooking time: 15 to 20 minutes
Yield: 2 cups

This is one of the classic five "mother sauces" of French cuisine. It's simply a white stock -- chicken, fish or veal -- that is thickened with roux.

Ingredients
1 pint chicken or fish stock or broth
1/4 cup roux
1/4 tsp. salt
White pepper to taste

1. Heat the stock to a simmer in a heavy sauce pan. Whisk in the roux until it is completely dissolved.
2. Simmer until the sauce coats the back of a spoon, 15-20 minutes. Season with salt and white pepper to taste. Strain through a fine strainer.

Nutrition information per tablespoon: 10 calories, 69% of calories from fat, 1 g fat, 0.5 g saturated fat, 2 mg cholesterol, 0.4 g carbohydrates, 0 g protein, 67 mg sodium, 0 g fiber.

White wine cream sauce

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 cup

Use the veloute sauce to make this, a great combo with fish or chicken. For herbs, try fresh thyme, tarragon, chives or parsley.

Ingredients
2 Tbsps. white wine
1 cup veloute, see recipe
1 Tbsp. warmed whipping cream
1 Tbsp. minced fresh herbs or 1/2 tsp. dried herbs
1 Tbsp. cold butter
1/4 tsp. salt
White pepper, fresh lemon juice

1. Heat wine in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat to a boil; cook until wine is reduced by half, 2 minutes.

2. Add the veloute; heat to a simmer. Cook 2 minutes. Add the cream and fresh herbs. Remove from heat. Whisk in the cold butter. Season with salt, pepper to taste and a few drops of lemon juice. Pass the sauce through a fine strainer.

Nutrition information per tablespoon: 20 calories, 90% of calories from fat, 2 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 5 mg cholesterol, 0 g carbohydrates, 0 g protein, 104 mg sodium, 0 g fiber.