Roux, Dry

Dry Roux is a very useful item to keep in your spice cabinet. It can be used for making gravy, thickening (as well as adding character to) soups or stews and kick starting you to a perfect pot of gumbo. It is something that aspiring cooks shouldn't have to live without!

Toasted flour, that's all dry roux is! Get yourself a clean, dry (really dry) cast iron pan, some plain flour, a stirrer, and an oven and your in business! Now the game plan is to get the flour toasted as dark as possible without charcoaling it. Do you think you are up to the task? P.S. It's really easy!

Start with plain flour in a cast iron piece of cookware. I use this small Lodge Model LMSRD Lodge Round Mini Server. I set my toaster oven on bake, which energizes both the top and bottom heating elements, at 400 degrees with a thermometer sitting in the back on the oven rack rack.

Put enough flour in the pan to just cover the bottom about 1/4 inch. Head room is needed to aid in the stirring process lest you make a big mess! There is no need to preheat, just chunk 'er in there raw. Stir the flour when it starts to brown and then thereafter about every 15 or 20 minutes depending on how gutsy you are. However, should you scorch the top don't fret just shovel the burnt bits (which will have the consistency of charcoal and smoke badly) into the garbage and keep stirring. If dark spots that are a bit crunchy creep up that's good, crunch those up and keep stirring! Stop your Roux when it gets to be a rich dark chocolate like my top photo (camera flash bleached the color it's actually darker) and store her in an airtight container with your spices. Before long you won't know how you ever got along without it!

That there is my Implement of Destruction! I wish it had a longer handle but the stirring end is perfect for reaching across the rim of the pan and scraping the bottom. I just have to do it when the heating elements cycle off!

Remember what the Cajuns say! "The darker the roux, the richer the flavor!"