If someone's using something like duck fat then sure that's added flavor. If it's vegetable oil, it's just extra oil.

HTownAg98 said:

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Seems to me the solution would be to add some fat to the browned flour, and proceed from there. The purposes of the oil or fat in a roux, regardless of if it's for a gumbo or bechamel sauce, is to make it easier to integrate the flour into a liquid and keep it from clumping up, more evenly cook the flour, and to add some flavor. If you can do the same thing to dry flour in an oven, add the fat later, and get the same result, I don't see what's the big deal.

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This. I'm no chef. Just a guy who cooks at home. But I thought the biggest reason for the roux was to keep the flour from turning into clumps in the liquid. Color = depth of flavor but a light roux or dark one served the purpose to integrate the flour as a flavor and thickening agent into the liquid. Take away the oil and just adding flour (toasted or not) and you will end up with lumpy gumbo. Or lumpy anything else that a roux goes into. Gravy. Sauce. Whatever.

Maybe I don't get what's happening here. Or understand the point of not making a roux. It's not exactly rocket science or time consuming. And I'm not exactly a traditionalist having made my fair share in a microwave of all things.

The thickening power of flour goes down the more you brown it (probably has to do with the degradation of the starches as they're "cooked"). Hence why a very dark roux will be thinner than a blonde roux, and you'll need to use more of it to thicken the roux. I've never made a dry roux, so I can't attest to how lumpy it will get, but I can say for certain that it would be less than if you used raw flour and just dumped a bunch of hot liquid into it.

I roux the day that I opened this thread.

Backyard Gator said:

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Danger Mouse said:

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User name checks out. Making roux is the essential step in most cajun:creole dishes, and particularly gumbo.

It is akin to using powdered tomato sauce when making pasta.

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Browned flour/dry roux actually has a historical basis in Creole cooking.



The practice of making a roux that you slowly cook in gumbo is actually a 20th century practice. People who try to get snobby by arguing for authenticity are ignorant of culinary history.

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Even that recipe has a roux, because when they add the toasted flour to the oil - you have a roux. All you are doing is cooking the flour first, but the purpose of cooking a roux is to get the flavors out of the flour so that it doesn't taste like, well, flour.

Also, cooking a roux like we do today is not a new fangled thing - even the guy in your video says that there are recipes in the same cookbook he pulled his from that have traditional roux making as part of the gumbo recipe.

Once I learned how to make a fast roux, I've never done it any other way. 20 minutes and done.