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Getting Closer to Black: Making the Perfect Roux

Roux is the basic ingredient in much of traditional Cajun and Creole cooking. So making a roux should be the simplest thing in the world. One New Orleans cookbook states the recipe in its totality like this: "Make a roux with equal parts oil and flour to desired color."

That is the standard. Fifty-fifty proportions of oil and flour. Cook until it is the color you want it. Don't burn it.

And that is where the agreement ends.

Do you mean vegetable oil? Lard? Butter? What is the best color for your roux? Cooked on the stovetop or in the oven? Stir constantly or consistently? High heat for a short amount of time or low heat for a long time? Creole or Cajun cooking? You are not supposed to burn it, but how can you tell you've burned something or not when you cooking it to an almost black color? Do you get a better roux if you put just a little bit more flour than oil? And can a roux made without butter or oil or made in the microwave really be called a roux?

I love to quiz people about their rouxs and gumbos. If a cook considers his or her gumbo to be good (and every cook who spends the hours it takes to make a gumbo does), then I know he or she is certain to have a strong opinion about the right way and the wrong way to make a roux.

You don't eat roux by itself. Roux is a base that you add ingredients to and is used in all kinds of cooking, all around the world. (My Wisconsin remarked, "Oh yeah, that's how you make a white sauce!") Louisiana cooking uses mostly a darker roux for the nutty, kick-ass flavor that makes a gumbo really taste like a gumbo, or gives an etoufee that distinctive earthy flavor. "First you make a roux" has prefaced so many recipes in Louisiana cooking that it has become a cliché. "How does a Cajun make love?" the joke goes. "First he makes a roux…."

Words describing roux often follow a mixture of color and food: white, blond, peanut butter, pecan, milk chocolate, fudge, bittersweet chocolate, mahogany, red black, noir. Each step down the color continuum brings you nearer to the Holy Grail-the Black Roux. Closer to black. Closer to perfection. Closer to disaster.

Making roux as a base for sauces, gravies and gumbo goes back centuries in the south. Traditional roux is made by very slow cooking. Paul Prudhomme says his mother used to make a roux that cooked for several hours. Most contemporary cooks use higher heat and constant stirring to get a very good roux in a shorter amount of time. Butter based roux needs to be stirred at low to medium heat and are often used for etouffées. To make a butter based roux to create a dark gumbo, you settle in and make a commitment to stirring long and slow. Vegetable and peanut oil can withstand higher heat, so a good dark roux can be made in a shorter amount of time. But alas, this process is not for the faint of heart. When referring to making a dark roux over high heat, most cookbooks use the instruction (I quote) "Stir like hell!"

Paul Prudhomme devotes four pages in Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen of how to make a good roux and includes an additional two full color pages with comparison photographs of the different stages of roux. The color photos are a great guide. 2a Is your light brown Roux uses for light sauces and gravies. It's almost yellow, and sometimes is called Blond Roux. 2b. is your Medium Brown roux-the color of a rich peanut butter. 2c is Dark Red Brown and here we are getting into gumbo territory. And 2d, well, it's Black Roux and is "used when you want stronger flavor than dark red brown roux. …It's takes practice to make a black roux without burning it but it s really the right color roux for a gumbo."

Cook it until it's black but don't burn it. It is the First and most repetitive Commandment of this intense little Cult.

On the point of avoiding burning the roux, Chuck Taggart of The Gumbo Pages writes "Use your eyes and nose; if it's gone over to being burned you can smell it. It's like the difference between really dark toast and burnt toast. You also have to take it off the heat slightly before the roux gets to the color you want, because the residual heat in the pan (particularly if it's cast iron) will continue to cook the roux….."

I came to gumbo later in life and I took my first recipes off The Gumbo Pages. Being from the Midwest and a bit chicken myself around the cooking a roux, so I started out making a 20 minute roux over medium heat and it turned out the color of peanut butter. My gumbo tasted pretty good to me and I was hooked. I turned the heat up a little bit and the next few times cooked a nice looking roux the color of milk chocolate and the gumbo was even better.

I have now worked my way up to a cast iron skillet, and make a 60 minute plus red black roux just a shade darker than the Hershey's Cocoa container which I put out on the counter as a guide. It's between illustrations 2c and 2d in the Paul Prudhomme cookbook "Louisiana Kitchen" and that's what I like the best. I've switched over from using a regular whisk to using an old fashioned gravy whisk, the kind my mom used to make chicken gravy, though some cooks prefer a spatula. I use oil, not butter. I feel I am not at roux perfection yet each new roux as a chance to push it a little farther, and get closer to black. Without burning it, of course.

The gold standard for gumbo in Alaska seems to be the Double Musky in Girdwood whose folks learned in the restaurants of Paul Prudhomme. The gumbo is about as dark as a gumbo can get and almost a bit grainy. The Double Musky uses a butter based roux and developed its recipe working with some of Paul Prudhomme's chefs who make roux the way Chef's mother used to make it. The roux is cooked for about 30 minutes until its color reaches a dark nutty brown. Then the cook tosses in a cup of shrimp shells and at that point, the roux start turning darker quickly. The roux is stirred until black. "Don't burn it," Bob Persons, owner of the Double Musky, has been quoted. "or you'll just have to throw it out and start over."

The darker the roux, the less thickening agent it has, so a good dark gumbo is usually quite thin. A lighter, peanut butter colored gumbo comes from a lighter roux and tends be thicker. The Bourbon Street Diner in Wasilla used a lighter colored roux for their gumbo and it is very thick.

The Kincaid Grill in Anchorage makes their roux in a 500 degree over, using a shallow pan and stirring occasionally. It takes about 45 minutes and isn't as labor intensive as the stove top variety. The oven technique was learned by an employee named Roberto, who later opened his own place called The Gumbo House on Ninth. When asked about his roux, though, he smiles and swears he learned how to make a roux from his Mexican grandmother.

Now Steve McCaslund, chief brewer at the Homer Brewery who is well known for his halibut and shrimp gumbo, swears by the slow and steady approach. He is a butter-based-roux man and sets aside a whole morning when he is cooking his roux. He takes his roux and his gumbo very seriously. That brings us to another lesson I have learned. If someone is cooking gumbo and invites you over for a bowl, always say yes. Anything that takes that much time to make is going to be worth every spoonful.

Roux is an event from beginning to end. You set aside time and effort to make a good roux. Like setting out on the spiritual journey, you hope to push your roux making skills just a step and an insight further each time you make it. Stirring 500 to 600 degree cooking oil has an element of danger to it. Prudhomme's people call their black roux "Cajun napalm" to remind themselves to be respectful of its lethality. Many a cook wears his scars from a splattered roux-in-the-making with a twisted sense of pride, but they are scars nonetheless.

I love the rhythm and the mystery and the challenge of making a roux. It starts out slow and pokey until it reaches critical mass, and then it jumps from Prudhomme's Illustration 2a into 2b. Then it lingers in that Color Plate for awhile, until you start getting distracted or thinking maybe you are stirring it too much and not letting it cook. Then it shifts into high gear and starts getting darker quickly, maybe too quickly. Just at the point where it transitions into the 2d Color Plate Illustration (oh, Holy Grail!), the one labeled Black Roux, the phone will ring. It never, never fails. Whatever you do, don't answer it. Again, let us consult the Gumbo pages, "Roux must be stirred constantly to avoid burning. Constantly means not stopping to answer the phone, let the cat in, or flip the LP record over, and if you've got to go the bathroom ... hold it in or hand off your whisk or roux paddle to someone else. If you see black specks in your roux, you've burned it; throw it out and start over."

At the point you have reached your comfortable level of perfection, throw in the Trinity (celery, onions, peppers) to stop the cooking. Now you are no longer making roux. You've moved onto gumbo. Or etouffeé. Which is a whole 'nother story for another time.

Until then, here is a roux based recipes to pique your interest and your appetite. And if you take the challenge and try to make a roux, may your path continually take you closer to black. Closer to perfection. Without burning it, of course. (Amen.)

Crawfish or Shrimp Etouffeé

All Rights Reserved. Copyright Aileen McInnis 2007.