10.09.07
Roux aux Plastique
To get things started, why don’t I share a story about a nasty kitchen mishap which left me a few utensils short in the end?
Roux is a mixture of flour and fat, and is usually prepared by taking equal parts of each and putting over a low flame and stirring it constantly. The flour slowly toasts and develops a rich, nutty flavor and aroma.
It is a staple of French and Cajun cuisine, and many years ago I was going through a Cajun cooking phase, and made variations of gumbo and jambalaya fairly often. However, I was usually rather conservative in making my roux, and would often just keep it fairly pale, or sometimes even just toast flour on a baking sheet in the oven.
One night I decided to see how dark a roux I could make.
It started out well enough. One cup of flour and canola oil, put into a non-stick saucepan, put on low heat. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes: first, I got impatient, and second, I used a Teflon spoon.
It took several minutes before I realized anything was wrong. The roux was toasting quickly, but didn’t develop any dreaded black spots. However, while stirring it, I noticed my spoon was getting shorter, little by little, but speeding up. I pulled the spoon out to see what was going on, and of course the end was melting, leaving behind a trail of plastic. Realizing my mistake, I quickly threw the spoon into the sink, and rushed to the drawer to find a more appropriate utensil — at which point the roux began to burn.
I grabbed the first non-metal stirring utensil I could find, a rubber spatula, and began stirring again. This second utensil began to melt immediately.
At this point I realized the roux was lost and put the saucepan into the sink. Fortunately, I was smart enough to not immediately try to rinse the pan out (which would have certainly caused a lot of steam and hot oil to splatter everywhere, and would have most likely ruined the pan), but if the spoon had been salvageable at that point, it was certainly lost now; I had placed the very hot pan on top of the spoon.
Since then, I have always made roux in a stainless pan with a metal or wooden spoon.
heather (errantdreams) said,
July 5, 2008 at 10:26 am
Ooooh. This makes me glad I’ve always used a whisk.
When I was young, my mother used to store pans of coffee cake or what-not in the oven between servings. One day we forgot the pan was in there and attempted to use the oven. When we pulled out the pan, the spatula that had also been in it was rather melty…
The Chef said,
July 5, 2008 at 10:34 am
I never understood why some people used the oven for storage of things they didn’t expect to get cooked. It’s like assuming a gun isn’t loaded when you mess around with it (only the results are usually hilarious instead of fatal).
heather (errantdreams) said,
July 5, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve never stored food in the oven. But then, I did have that great object lesson early on…