Brown Roux

Ingredients

• half a pound of flour
• half a pound of good butter
• a large slice of cut raw onion

Method

1. 1

   Dry and sift the flour.

2. 2

   Clarify the butter by heating it and skimming off the scum.

3. 3

   Mix the flour into the clarified butter and stir over a fierce fire until it turns light brown.

4. 4

   Remove from heat and add a slice of onion to check the heat.

5. 5

   Once the desired color is reached, remove the onion and pour the roux into pots for storage.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The housekeeper's guide to preserved meats, fruits, vegetables, &c (1880), page 197. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Brown roux is one of the most simple and at the same time most useful substances used in cooking. It seems a most extraordinary fact, but it is none the less true, that the majority of English women-cooks are absolutely unacquainted with the exist- ence of brown roux, a substance, on the other hand, that the French cook uses fifty times a day. Brown roux is used for thickening every kind of soup and brown gravy. In England women- cooks are in the habit of thickening their soups and gravies with butter and flour. Brown roux is butter and flour, but every grain of flour used in its com- position has been first fried a light brown colour. It is wonderful what a difference the frying or baking of the flour first makes in the flavour of the soup. There is just as much difference between the flavour of soup that has been thickened with brown roux and soup thickened with ordinary butter and flour, as between the rich taste of puff paste after it has been baked and a piece of raw pie-crust. It is astonish- ing that English cooks will either not believe this or will not take the trouble to make brown roux. Till they do so the majority of English people must put up with the absence of the flavour in their soups and gravies, but I have no hesitation in saying that brown roux is absolutely essential to all even mode- rate cooking. Brown roux is very easily made, and if the cook only knew, it is also a great saving of trouble. It can be made in large quantities and will keep good for months, and when cooks are making soups and gravies they wall find it very much better than butter and flour. When brown roux is once made it is always ready to hand. To make brown roux act as follows. I will de- scribe how to make a small quantity for the benefit of small households. Take half a pound of flour and see that it is thoroughly dry. Then sift it. The best mode of drying flour is to spread a large newspaper in front of a fierce fire and sift the flour on to the newspaper. It dries much better when spread out in this way. Next take half a pound of good butter and clarify it. Butter is clarified as follows : Place half a pound in a stewpan over the fire till the butter is oiled. The cook will now observe that on the top of the butter there is a slight amount of scum, and at the bottom there wall be a milky substance, which is the dregs. Remove the scum by skimming the butter. Then pour off the butter, taking care that all the dregs are left behind. This is now butter properly clarified, and is the snbstance that is used for covering over every kind of potted meat. Next mix the half-pound of flour into the butter, place it in an enamelled stewpan, and stir it over a fierce fire till it begins to turn colour. Directly it begins to turn colour the cook should be careful not to burn it. It is best to remove the stewpan from the fire and continue stirring and then to replace it on the fire. As soon as the whole mixture has assumed what may be termed a light fawn colour, it should be removed from the fire altogether. If an enamelled stewpan has been used, owing to this retaining the heat the mixture will go on frizzling for quite a quarter of an hour after it has been removed from the fire. It is generally best to slacken the heat by throwing into the mixture a large slice of cut raw onion

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.