BROWN AND WHITE THICKENING, OR ROUX
It is of great importance for vegetarians always to have on hand a fairly good stock of white and brown roux, as it is a great saving both of time and money. As roux will keep good for weeks, and even months, there is no fear of waste in making a quantity at a time. Take a pound of flour, with a spoonful or two over; see that it is thoroughly dry, and then sift it. Next take a pound of butter and squeeze it in a cloth so as much as possible to extract all the moisture from it. Next take a stew-pan--an enamelled one is best--and melt the butter till it runs to oil. It will now be found that, although the bulk of the butter looks like oil, a certain amount of froth will rise to the top. This must be carefully skimmed off. Continue to expose the butter to a gentle heat till the scum ceases to rise. Now pour off the oiled butter very gently into a basin till you come to some dregs. These should be thrown away, or, at any rate, not used in making the roux. Now mix the pound of dried and sifted flour with the oiled butter, which is what the French cooks call clarified butter. Place it back in the stew-pan, put the stew-pan over a tolerably good fire, but not too fierce, as there is a danger of its burning. With a wooden spoon keep stirring this mixture, and keep scraping the bottom of the stew-pan, first in one place and then in another, being specially careful of the edges, to prevent its burning. Gradually the mixture will begin to turn color. As soon as this turn of color is perceptible take out half and put it in a basin. This is the white roux, viz., flour cooked in butter but not discolored beyond a very trifling amount. Keep the stew-pan on the fire, and go on stirring the remainder, which will get gradually darker and darker in color. As soon as the color is that of light chocolate remove the stew-pan from the fire altogether, but still continue scraping and stirring for a few minutes longer, as the enamel retains the heat to such an extent that it will sometimes burn after it has been removed from the fire. It is important not to have the mixture too dark, and it will be found by experience that it gets darker after the stew-pan has been removed from the fire. When we say light chocolate we refer to the color of a cake of chocolate that has been broken. The inside is the color, not the outside. It is advisable sometimes to have by you ready a large slice of onion, and if you think it is dark enough you can throw this in and immediately by this means slacken the heat. Pour the brown roux into a separate basin, and put them by for use.
In the houses of most vegetarians more white roux will be used than brown, consequently more than half should be removed if this is the case when the roux first commences to turn color. When the brown roux gets cold it has all the appearance of chocolate, and when you use it is best to scrape off the quantity you require with a spoon, and not add it to soups or sauces in one lump.
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From Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet by A. G. Payne
