In the fall and winter, soup is my comfort food. I never learned how to make a roux that turns chocolate brown, like Emeril says it should look like. I've stood over the stove stirring and stirring but, at best, I get a cafe au lait type of colour to it.

Hotmail, if you read this, I wondered if you might know. I'd love to learn how to make gumbo. Any tips would be appreciated.

Connie,

Think of the color in roux as caramelized sugar - basically what it is - and the colors sugar develops when it gets to different temps. This way you can test it when you get it to that point, where it doesn't seem to want to pass. Maybe you have to increase the heat, even though you hate to burn it. It may be loosing heat as fast as it is absorbing it, and not getting up to where it has to get to. When I was tryong to figure out a temp to cook nam prik pao to, w/o burning it - a common mistake in the beginning - I realized it was sugars burning, and now I cook it to 290º (I cook it to 270º, stirring some, then start stirring constantly), and remove it from the pan immediately, for a perfectly caramelized sauce. Takes a pretty high heat to do this - over medium. Try 280º first, and work up, if necessary, remembering sugar burns around 330º.

Dave

Connie, sounds like you need to crank up that fire a little bit. Browning takes heat. Also, remember that a darker colored roux has less thickening capabilities than a lighter colored one.

I'm confused...I thought a roux for soup was not chocolate brown but creamy white, as in cream of broccoli,mushroom, potato soup,etc.
Dessert roux would have sugar to carmelize,right?

Hungarian-American cooks (like my Great grandmother-this was told to me quite a long time ago) make tomato sauce with a roux. Blech- I can't imagine doing that- it must taste awful!

I make many kinds of vegetable soup using this sauce as a base/thickener:

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/getrecipe.zsp?id=84344

I think this is what franeli meant by creamy white sauce.

Roux is the basis for your white sauce. Flour and butter cooked together. Add milk and you've got your white sauce for cream of ?? soup. For making something like gumbo, like Connie wants to do, the roux is cooked until it's much darker before anything is added to it.

Thank you all for clarification. My next question: Do you add the soup ingredients (i.e. chicken, bell peppers, tomatoes, etc.) to the roux or do you add the roux to the soup?

I think I understand now why my roux was not darkening. It's true I was slaving over a very low heat for a very long time so that I wouldn't burn it.

I added it to my soup and, mind you, it wasn't bad at all, but it wasn't what I wanted.

With the lighter thicker roux I can make any soup, I guess. I do want to make a good tasty gumbo, though. A little spicy even.

I think you add the roux to the soup, but I can't remember for sure. Anyone else make gumbo?

I usually add the roux to the gumbo, but when making white sauce (unbrowned roux), I add my heated or unheated liquids to the roux in the pot. Regardless of which way I do it, I make sure to simmer it long enough after thickening to keep it from tasting like paste.

Are you using okra? Okra helps thicken gumbos. As does gumbo file, (pronounced fee-LAY) but I don't know as I've seen file for sale anywhere else but down here. If you have sassafras trees, you may be able to make your own.

Maybe this will help:
http://www.gumbopages.com/recipe-page.html
Good luck!

After reviewing the various gumbo recieps in THE RIVER ROAD and RECIPES AND REMINISCENCES OF NEW ORLEANS and having lived in N.O., I can report that gumbo can be made with or without a roux and that the roux can be made and added to the soup or the other way around. Gumbos with okra often skip the flour. I personally do not make a roux when I make seafood/okra gumbo as it get too thick. My father in law who lived many decades in N.O. would not eat gumbo unless it had a thin dark soup base. No glop for him! He would actually drive from N.O. to the country around Lafayette (sp?)...1 hr 45 min each way...to get what he felt was real shrimp gumbo. So, the good news is just make it so you like it.

Everybody makes gumbo a different way depending on whats available, how their grandmother made it, or how they like it. Some people use chicken, some people will only make the roux with bacon grease, some people add oyster juice. Every bowl is an adventure!

This is beginning to sound better and better. Make it the way you like it! That's for me. No file around here. No sassafras trees either.

But I really did want to surprise my Louisiana daughter-in-law the next time she comes to visit. I bet you I can make a decent gumbo if I really tried. I might even be able to get okra.

Thank you so much.

To clarify - I simmer the roux after it boils/thickens prior to adding it to the gumbo. So my roux is not a great thickener. But then, I think okra is an essential ingredient, so that does a bit of thickening, too. I also like file' on mine, which I forgot to mention is added after cooking, prior to eating, like pepper sauce - a thickening condiment, if you will. Sorry Connie, I didn't really look - Ontario is probably a bit cool for sassafras. I could send you some leaves, if you would like. My email is sasswife@hotmail.com if you want to email me with a snail mail addy.

I do like my gumbo roux made with bacon grease because I think that makes it brown a little easier and gives it more flavor. Since roux is basically paste, (like the stuff you used in kindergarten), flavor is a good thing. Other than that, I tend to use what ever I have in my 'fridge - chicken, shrimp, crab, sausage, ham, etc... To be served over rice, of course. Gulfcoast, I love your description of gumbo.

If you want to surprise DIL, try making it a couple times a month. I've got a halfway to decent jambalaya recipe, if you want that.

quote:

If you want to surprise DIL, try making it a couple times a month. I've got a halfway to decent jambalaya recipe, if you want that.

Oh yeah, that sounds fantastic. Jambalaya! I bet she'd love that. I don't think she's going to visit any time soon because her sister is getting married and she's going to Baton Rouge, La. (That's home to her) But, you know, I'll have lots of time to practice, right?

It's so kind of you to offer to send me some sassafras leaves, but I think I'll pass on that. Instead, I'll ask DIL to pick me up some file powder when she goes home. Whaddya think?

Hugs, Peace & Blessings