Roux sauce

Roux sauce (French. roux) is considered the main or basic sauce of national French cuisine. It is on the basis of roux sauce that other varieties of classic sauces are made. French chefs know a lot about sauces, so a rare French national dish will do without a carefully chosen and expertly prepared sauce. Many foodies reasonably argue that French cuisine has been consistently popular for several centuries in a row only due to the variety of sauces.

According to classical culinary canons, there are three main sauces - velute, béchamel and espanyol or Spanish sauce. However, roux sauce is the "basis of the basics" of all sauces used by chefs in France. Roux sauce or thickener was invented in the Middle Ages, when European culinary art began to develop rapidly. Interestingly, the first sauces, including ru, were not made by chefs in order to significantly improve the taste and aroma of the final dish.

The fact is that in the Middle Ages, people did not have refrigerators or refrigeration rooms. The freshness of food in medieval Europe was preserved using ice or cold cellars. However, with the help of such methods, it was not always possible to preserve expensive delicacies. For this reason, one of the court chefs of the French king decided to cheat and hide the fetid smell and not the best taste of the dish under a fragrant sauce. This is how the original roux sauce turned out, for the manufacture of which you just need to fry flour in butter.

Over time, other ingredients began to be added to the roux sauce and change the cooking process. As a result, over several centuries of continuous culinary experiments, French chefs honed the skill of making a variety of sauces, as they say "for all occasions. " However, for almost every French sauce, a thickener or roux sauce is used.

In the modern culinary tradition, roux sauce is used exclusively as a thickener for derived sauces. The taste and aroma characteristics of the derived products depend on the quality of the roux sauce. Therefore, it is important to comply with the simple, at first glance, formulation of ru sauce. Roux sauce is made from prime grade wheat flour with added fat, usually using tar. Then flour and fat are fried in melted butter. Moreover, the type of roux sauce depends on the roasting time.

There are three main varieties of roux sauce:



white roux sauce or roux blanc is distinguished by its white color and short heat treatment time;

golden roux or roux blond is distinguished by its golden color and longer process of frying flour with fat in butter;

red roux or roux brun, such a sauce acquires its dark color due to long roasting, as well as meat, chicken or fish broth, which is added to the flour;