re: Kitchen Bouqet to darken your roux

There are quite a few in this thread that need to have their man card revoked and should be forever banned from making a roux.


When I was young and my grandparents were still alive, my grandfather once caught my grandmother not making a proper roux and adding KB. He kicked her out of the kitchen and told the family that going forward that I was the only person allowed to make roux in their kitchen. And that if he ever caught anyone else using KB in his kitchen they would be uninvited from all future family gatherings. This remained the case until far after he passed and actually until my grandmother passed. FOr all those years between their passings, for all family gatherings I would go to their house and cook for all 145 of us. SHortly after arriving and prior to my beginning to cook I would pour my grandmother a glass of wine and send her to her room and tell her I would call her when she was allowed to come out.

My PawPaw taught me well.

Gone forever. Take half and half oil and flour in a cast iron skillet, or any oven proof container. Place in a 350-400 degree oven. Stir at 30 minutes and then at 10-15 minute intervals until you reach the stage of brown you desire. At 350 it will take much longer, but IMO there is no way to burn it. At 400, it will go much more quickly.

When you reach the level of brown you like, pull it and go from there. You can add your vegetables to the roux, or add the roux to your vegetables. You can use the roux right away, or put it in the refrigerator or freeze it for later use.

The oven takes longer, but is pretty much failure proof.


If looking for the quickest way, google for Paul Prudhomme's roux method. He used a 18,976,431 BTU burner and could do a roux in 2.7 seconds.