Roux: White, Blond & Brown

Name: Roux: White, Blond & Brown
Yield: Approximately 190 g cooked roux
Ingredients: 100 g Butter; 100 g Plain wheat flour

The flour-and-fat foundation, with clear colour targets for white, blond and brown roux.

The flour-and-fat foundation, with clear colour targets for white, blond and brown roux.

Approximately 190 g cooked roux

Ingredients

Batch

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in flour and cook, stirring continuously, so every particle is coated.
For white roux, cook gently for 2 to 3 minutes until sandy and foaming, without colouring. For blond roux, continue for approximately 5 to 8 minutes until biscuit-coloured and lightly nutty.
For brown roux, continue over gentle heat for approximately 15 to 25 minutes until evenly chestnut-coloured, stirring into the corners. Judge colour rather than time; discard scorched roux.
Whisk gradually into liquid as directed in the sauce recipe, then simmer to cook out the flour. Brown roux thickens less strongly than white roux.

Roux is flour cooked in fat. Hollandaise contains no roux; modern tomato sauce need not contain one either. These are three useful roux stages, not five separate mother sauces.
When scaling, adjust pan or tin size and work in batches where needed; cooking and proving times follow texture and temperature, not the portion multiplier.

Cool promptly, cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days, or freeze in measured portions for up to 2 months.