How Do You Roux? Have You Tried the Oven?
As soon as the weather gets crisp, I start thinking about gumbo. I love to eat it, but I struggle with making it. I didn’t grow up in a gumbo making family. I don’t have a Cajun grandmother. What was I to do?
I turned to my cookbooks, friends, and of course the internet. I watched countless videos and read recipes. I just had one problem … they all started the same way, first, you make a roux and I was done before I started.
I’ve made a simple blonde roux before for baked macaroni and cheese, but I struggled with that deep roux I wanted for gumbo.
I didn’t want to use a jarred roux, I don’t know why, but I didn’t and the times I’ve tried to do a classic stove-top version, I scorched it. Who has the time to stand and stir when you’ve got small kids? Then I remembered a former supervisor told me about toasting the flour in the oven first. I’d gone down that rabbit hole and learned about an oven roux. Back to internet searching I went, from blogs to Reddit, I read about several methods, temperatures, and combinations. I felt like we could do it. Sure, you still have to stir it, but it is not a constant and it lets me and my husband do other things while it is cooking away. So we broke out the enameled cast iron and set out to make our gumbo with the “recipe” cobbled together from different sources, but trust, NO tomatoes here.
We started our roux on the stovetop. It was simple enough and started the usual way, equal parts flour and fat. We used only oil since we have a severe dairy allergy in our house. We stirred it until it was basically all combined and then into 350 degree oven it went. From there we took turns stirring approximately every 15 minutes, until we got it where we wanted it. This roux was in the oven for about 3 hours. To be honest, if not for the time limitations, it probably would have gone another hour or so.
In the end, we got it to a deep color we were happy with and moved on to actually making our gumbo. The oven gave it a toasted flavor we loved. We made a double batch in the oven and put the other half in a freezer safe container to have for next time. We loved our finished product and will probably stick to the oven method. Then again, I heard about another quicker, homemade roux option. Next time we may get really bold…and try it in the microwave!
