Back to Basics

Over the past few weeks I've had some readers message me asking some questions about some kitchen basics, so I thought I'd take some time to shed some light on these.  The basics are a great place to start, with any project, but specifically with food, when you understand what something is, how it's made, and how it's applied that is the building blocks of creativity in the kitchen.

What is a roux?

A roux (roo) is a combination of flour and fat, usually oil or butter.  There are three stages of a roux; white, which is just the incorporated butter and flour and has the consistency of wet sand, this roux also has the greatest thickening power.  The next is blonde; which has a little less thickening power and is cooked a little longer than the white.  You'll know you've reached the proper level  when it starts to smell like popcorn.  The next in line is the brown this has the least thickening power, and again is cooked longer than the blonde, when done this roux will be visibly dark in color, and be coarse and chalky.

What is a mirepoix (meer-pwah)?

This is an aromatic combination of vegetables that is the basis for most soup recipes.  The blend consists of 50% onion, 25% celery, 25% carrot, so for example if a recipe calls for 2 cups of mirepoix you would chop 1 cup onion, 1/2 cup celery, and 1/2 cup carrot.  Now some recipes call for a white mirepoix, this is the exact same blend except omit the carrots.

What is clarified butter?:

This is just plain butter that has had the solids and impurities removed.  The benefit to doing this is that you increase the smoke point, (the point when the butter burns), and you also increase the shelf life of the butter, and minimize any butter solids breaking up in sauces.  They way you do this is place butter into a saucepan and melt over low heat, as it is melting there will be a foam of solids that rise to the top.  As these solids rise, skim them off with a spoon, when all the solids have stopped coming to the surface turn the heat off, and you'll notice that the butter is now clear and you can see a cloudy mass at the bottom, this is the remainder of the milk solids.  Now slowly pour the butter into another storage container and as your pouring you'll see the clear butter pouring, you want to stop pouring just as you reach the milk solids on the bottom, this part remaining in the pan can be discarded.

Hopefully these few pointers have helped "clarify" a few things.