dark roux  

Hi Dillbert,

My take is if your trick works for you (double flour) why question it.

If a traditional roux is what you want but it separates, think of portion packing it to freeze it like making ice cubes. Use as many frozen cubes as you need when making recipes.

As for flour choice, roux is a controlled browning (Maillard) reaction. The reaction depends on available proteins and carbohydrates. Flour is carbohydrate heavy so increasing the protein will help in colour and flavour development. In this light, bread flour (high in protein) will work better then AP (intermediate) and better still than (low protein) cake flour.

That's my take,
Luc H.

For dark roux forget about butter and use oil.
If it smells burnt you should throw it out and start again.
Some tricks to unattended dark roux are browning the flour in the oven, or taking your vegetables and cooking them separately til they're almost black.
The darker the roux the less the thickening power

Scarerobot,
use oil instead of butter: Excellent point! butter proteins brown/burn more easily then the flour proteins.

My mother used to brown flour in the oven... I hated the smell when I was a child but she made a mean brown sauce for pork roast with that stuff!

the decreasing thickening power of dark roux is on the money (I think we covered that in another post). Dark roux is more for flavour and colour then thickening. The browning reaction breakdown starch hence the thickening capacity of flour.

Great insight Scarerobot!

Luc H.

Dillbert,

Obviously you know your roux and you're not crazy .... I think (wink, nudge).
Luc H.

what got my attention was that you are making roux while entertaining.

It can be made into gumbo or whatever sauce earlier in the day and used at dinner.

Made seafood gumbo last Monday. 1-1 ration oil to flour, add spices and veg to dark roux, then stock.....add seafood just minutes prior to service.... and only as much for those portions. Keeps the seafood from overcooking.

Etouffee can be made earlier and slowly reheated

So what are you making with the dark roux?

I agree on more flour than fat. Makes sense in producing some to keep for later as you get more roux for about the same work.

I've taken to toasting a few cups of flour in the oven. Stir it around a few times. I don't think it tastes the same as fat cooked roux but it's a useful shortcut for me as a home cook. Speeds up weekday gravies and stews. i usually darken it some more in fat but the cooking time is significantly shorter.

And I use higher smoking point fat than butter for dark roux. However, it's not usually that much higher. Bacon drippings, schmalz and other good fat from cooking. I'd go for ghee over butter just to skip on the milk solids if I happen to have some ghee around.

Phil

As already stated, your problem is that you are using butter to try and make a dark or brown roux.

The ratio for dark roux is 5 parts flour to 4 parts dripping (or similar type fat or oil)...even vegetable deep frying compound can be used.

The dark colour you are trying to get does not come from the roux being dark. It comes from the additives...That is what you use to make the sauce. You can add colour directly to the roux if you really want the roux to be darker. For example, if you are after a demi glaze type result, you can add a spoon or two of triple concentrate tomato paste directly to the roux.

What is it exactly you are trying to achieve? Maybe if we understood exactly what it is you are looking for, we might be able to offer a solution.

:look:

Hi Dillbert,
I followed you from the get go.

As for why butter can (not < is >) a problem has nothing to do with the fat smoke point.
It is the residual milk proteins in butter that have a tendency to burn more readily than the flour will brown. But, if you keep things low and slow like I now you are doing, it is not an issue (and the fatty acid in butter taste better than any other oils)

Luc H.

It seems like it is normal for butter. I've had the same "problem" when using butter for a dark roux as i'm also a "roux freezer". After a little while, I stopped using butter and I didn't really see any more seperation. Maybe (just speculating) it has something to do with butter being part milk solids, so that when you freeze it, it's more likely to seperate than, say, an oil. Also, as regards to butter being a problem, it's not. It's more likely to burn than oil but if you aren't having any trouble then you aren't having any problem.

before i went to school i only knew a few of the rouxs anyway they tought us about brick roux which you cook the poo out of and it acutaly starts to turn red. kinda cool.

ive never heard of increasing ratio just cooking time. but im a noob so idk.

Dill- Yeah, my name is from when I first got onto the line I had some crappy target ginsus. My chef grabbed one, crushed a clove of garlic with it (all the while smiling and shaking his head), and broke it. One of my favorite kitchen memories. But that's really wierd, I usually get seperation only after refrigeration (a thin layer forms on top of the rest). I'd still say it sounds just about normal. And I keep mine on the lower right hand corner next to the demi-glaze in star shaped ice cubes (demi glaze is in hearts and no I don't think it's girly).

P.S. This Thanksgiving, I'm taking a few cubes of roux and 1 or 2 of demi glaze with me and discreetly dropping them into my mother-in-law's gravy. Thanksgiving there might be tolerable then.

As stated earlier, it is not the butter that burns but rather the milk residue. If you really want to use butter you can try using ghee which is clarified butter. You can make it yourself if you want. Heat some butter in a pan so that it just melts. So not very hot. A whitish "scum" will form on the top. It will look almost bubbly...Using a spoon remove the scum and what you have left is clarified butter or ghee.

To answer your question, yes. On cooling the flour will seperate from the oil / fat. It should mix back in very easily when you want to use it.

The demi glaze (rich brown sauce) colour that you are trying to achieve is not so much from the roux but is more from the stock or liquid that you use to make the sauce. The roux will contribute to the colour but nothing like what you are expecting.

If you are keen on trying to make demi glaze (also known as demi glace) I will be happy to post a recipe for it. But it takes a long time time. From memory about 8 hours to make the stock then about another 8 hours of reduction to make the sauce.

I still don't really understand why you want to freeze the roux. I understand that you want it for later use and that is fine. But it does not matter when you use it, you still need to make a stock. Whether it's a stock from the pan, as in pan gravy, or a purpose built stock. Making the stock takes a lot longer and more work than the roux...So why not make a bigger batch of sauce at a mid colour and freeze that?

That is exactly what I do! Each two months or so I make a big (about 5 litres) pot of gravy base. I just make a basic stock from vege scraps and sometimes bones. When it's done, I divide about half into small feezer containers and freeze it. The other half is just put in a large plastic bowl and covered with cling wrap and kept in the fridge. If you practice proper food handling and your fridge works properly, it should last 3 or 4 weeks...unless you eat it before then!

If you make it thicker than normal, which is what I do, then when you want to use it, it will be thick enough to take the extra liquid. For example, if you wanted a red wine gravy, you simply thaw, heat, add red wine, heat and serve.

I hope all that is of help.:)

A roux is a suspension of flour particles, each enclosed in a globule of fat. The starch in the flour forms an adhesive for the fat. When the starch is convereted by a process called dextrinisation aka the Maillard reaction which Luc described. As a result there is are fewer starch molecules per particle to hold the fat. When the dark or brick roux is chilled, there is some separation of the fat, milk solid and water components of the butter. That and the lower adherence results in the butter separating out of the roux.

You are not the first person to notice this.

Your solution to increase the flour ratio is a recognized solution. You're not the first person to think of it but since you arrived it at independently much credit is due. Since it works, keep doing it.

Returning to an earlier thought, it is because the flour particles are separated by fat that they thicken liquid smoothly rather than clumping and forming lumps. As long as the flour is held by the fat in such a way that it will thicken without clumpingl, you're in like Flynn. I'm not sure if the improvised ratio is still properly called a roux or not. But what's in a name?

How demi glace got into this discussion isn't really clear to me, but for what it's worth: A classic demi is an espagnole daughter made from equal quantities of espagnole and veal stock, then reduced by half. An espagnole is a 25% reduction of veal stock and aromatics thickened with a medium-dark roux and structured by tomato. If you've got the stock, it takes about 3 hours to make a gallon (typical restaurant quantity for a week) of decent espagnole, and another 1-1/2 to make a quart of demi. If you're interested in espagnole there's a thread that was going earlier this spring. It was actually a pretty good thread if you like crotchety old men talking about how it used to be and how you kids shot it all to #ell.

Pardon the digression. A good dark roux is part of the price of admission when it comes to good cajun and creole cooking as well as certain aspects of "French" cooking like making a demi. Sounds like you can not only do it, but you can do it under pressure and understand the process well enough to improvise.

No more dry matini glasses, ever.

BDL

Yes, dextrinisation is in fact what happens to starch in a roux but it is not part of the Maillard reaction.... my turn to give details.

*****Warning**** below is a detailed food chemistry description of how a brown roux is achieved. Read at your own risk *****warning*****.

Starch is a polymer of glucose. Glucose is a 8 sided molecule (like a stop sign). Glucose molecules link together in a straight chain. The link are opposite each other. It is possible for glucose to make a side ways link hence a 3rd latching point.

Starch is a tree like structure. Most limbs are straight and occasionally branch out (a three point attachment). The straight limbs are called dextrin. Dextrin mix with water is very adhesive and is used extensively in commercial carpenter's glue for example but have no fat binding capabilities. Of the 3 possible glucose links the side attachment is the weakess.

Dextrinisation is when side chains break away when high dry heat is applied to the starch hence dextrin strands are obtained. Dextrin chains can also break in several parts when heat is applied. This reaction happens above 100C or 212C so water is not present. If water is present, starch can only be cooked at 100C. Starch soaks up water and gels when heated.

Dextrin chains have a non-reactive inert end and a reactive end called the <reducing end>. A dextrin's reducing end is the side that was previously attached to the trunk of the starch. Knowing starch is a treelike structure, only the bottom trunk end is reactive not the limb extremities.

the Maillard reaction happens when a reducing sugar reacts with a free amino acid (protein) in the presence of heat (above 100C or 212F) in the absence of humidity.

Here is the reactive steps behind the dark roux formation:

Starch and butter are combined. Heated. All the water boils off which is witnessed when the mixture foams. All the humidity in the flour and the water in the butter is boiled out. During this process the mixture stays more or less around 100C and increases slowly as more water is lossed. Once the water is all gone and the starch is technically <dry>, the temperature of the mixture increases. At above 250 or so, the starch is dextrinified which liberates reducing sugar ends. At the same time, any free amino acids not linked to proteins (mostly found in butter), will react with the sugars producing a brown compound (which happens to taste something as well). While the heat is maintained, more dextrin is produced and broken, more reducing sugars become available. At the same time, proteins break-up to liberating free amino acid. The Maillard reaction is maintained because components are continually being produced. A roux is borned and getting darker (and more flavourful). Cut the heat, stops the reaction.

The roux's capacity to gel water diminished are it gets darker.

Sorry I had to clarify the term above. When it comes to food science I am a stickler to details.

Luc H.

Dillbert,

Precisely!

Phil

You may hang with too high a class of cook and chef. I've read or heard the odd professional use the term, including Jeremiah Tower, Ken Frank, Herve This, Michael Ruhlman, Ferrari Adria, Harold McGee and Thomas Keller among others.

On the other hand, you're the first I've heard say brown roux is identical to blond or white except for the color. To my palate, the tastes are quite different, as different as the tastes of fresh and toasted bread; and all of my references agree.

FWIW, "Parisian Essence" doesn't exist here in the States. The equivalent is probably something like Kitchen Bouquet or Gravy Master. And yes, I googled Parisian + Essence.

BDL

ON EDIT: It is indeed all about the taste.

I've deleted a few posts and I'm locking this thread.

Do not PM me.