Roux & Basic White Sauce

This is the basis of all gravies and many sauces. You can make a roux with any fat. Beef gravy is made with a beef fat and flour roux for thickening the dripping and stock.

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: many

Prep Time: 10 minutes   Cook Time: 10 minutes  

Ingredients

Butter or any fat
flour
salt

Directions

For each tablespoon of butter use 1 Tablespoon of flour. Or use 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of butter or poultry fat. (I choose poultry fat because it melts just a little cooler than butter and has a pleasing flavor.)

Melt the butter and stir in the flour. Cook until very bubbly over a medium heat. At this point you may proceed to making a white sauce or you may cool the mixture and form into a ball.

To make a thin sauce:
Use 1 Tablespoon of butter and one of flour and one cup of milk. Add the cold milk to the hot roux and cook stirring constantly until the mixture thickens then turn down the heat and cook for 1 minute. This is about right for cream of ___(fill in the blank) soup.

For mac and cheese or scalloped potatoes:
Use 2 Tablespoons of flour and butter for each cup of milk and melt the cheese into the cooked sauce.

To thicken a soup:
Take a ball of the cold butter/flour combination (Roux) drop it into the boiling soup and stir it constantly until the soup is as thick as you want and lift the roux out with a slotted spoon and put it back into the fridge. It will melt from the outside in.

Never add hot liquid to hot roux because it will poach and all you will get is lumps.

Categories: Sauces

Submitted by: ross on February 20, 2011