Roux in the oven

Sunday, I started to make gumbo for my wife's book club Monday night. I really wanted to watch the Bears more than I wanted to tend to roux making. I remembered Alton Brown making roux in the oven, figured why not try it. It worked perfectly! 350 deg oven, 1/2 cup oil and about a cup of AP flour, gave it a good stir and into the oven. Stirred it twice more over the next hour and a half. By halftime I had a perfect roux. I'll never do it any other way.

interesting, not something I would ever do/try(I prefer to cook mine on the stove top no matter how long it takes to get it right), but an interesting alternative.

I am curious did the roux's color get to that "dark chocolate" stage in the oven?

If you've never tried the microwave roux recipe (plenty of hits on the net), you should give it a shot. I was skeptical at first, but that's how I do my rouxs now. It takes a little more babysitting, but it's fast.

As much as I love a good, heavy gumbo, I sometimes make a dry roux--esp. for seafood gumbos. You can make it stovetop in a skillet, but the oven method is less messy, and requires little to no stirring: Toast flour at 350 on a sheet pan until golden-brown, about 1 hour.

Jim;

Yes, the roux went through all the color stages that it would in the pan. I took it off at "chocolate" rather than "dark".

This is probably the most effective way to make a nice dark roux without having to stand over the stove constantly. At one of the places I used to work at we would use this method, however, in much larger quantities.

Flip

And, for anyone who suddenly finds they cannot use AP flour because of gluten or wheat intolerance, what's a person to do when they need roux?

Rice flours, for some reason, just don't brown well once mixed with the fat. They lump and clump and generally look melatonin-challenged.

But, browning the flour dry, as suggested by crrush, works extremely well. You can get it as dark as you want (either in the oven or on the stove in a pan) and then add the fat.

A good rule of thumb when substituting for AP flour is that a mix of GF flours works best - some sweet rice, some white or brown rice, and some potato starch maybe.

Flip wrote:This is probably the most effective way to make a nice dark roux without having to stand over the stove constantly. At one of the places I used to work at we would use this method, however, in much larger quantities.

Flip

sounds like a good option, thanks for the feedback.

But I guess I am an oddball based on the fact I enjoy standing over the stove stirring the roux until it is perfect. I guess I like the hands on approach.

ViewsAskew wrote:And, for anyone who suddenly finds they cannot use AP flour because of gluten or wheat intolerance, what's a person to do when they need roux?

Rice flours, for some reason, just don't brown well once mixed with the fat. They lump and clump and generally look melatonin-challenged.

But, browning the flour dry, as suggested by crrush, works extremely well. You can get it as dark as you want (either in the oven or on the stove in a pan) and then add the fat.

A good rule of thumb when substituting for AP flour is that a mix of GF flours works best - some sweet rice, some white or brown rice, and some potato starch maybe.

Oat flour is gluten free also, I believe. Also remember that a dark roux doesn't thicken things too much at all, it's mostly for flavour - so toasting flour and then mixing with fat is probably just as effective.

Llama, your info is basically right, but with a caveat. Oats themselves are GF, but they are often contaminated in the fields and during transport or even processing. Several varieties of commercial oats were tested for gluten and the results were discouraging. There is no brand that consistently is GF (of these mainstream brands), though individual containers sometimes are. Interestingly, there was huge variation within the same brand - like 3 PPM in one container and 300 in another. Since anything over 20 PPM is considered to be a problem, you just can't chance it (if you are celiac or otherwise intolerant). Since you can't be sure, you have to purchase from special places.

Since I pay so much for oat flour (compared to other flours) because of this situation, I tend to use the less expensive stuff like rice flour for thickening things. Now there is one much less expensive brand, Bob's REd Mill makes a certified GF oat, and I still tend to treat it as something special.