Cook along with Justin Wilson’s Looking Back every Saturday at 4:30 pm ET on RFD-TV
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups oil or bacon drippings
- 1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
Instructions:
Heat the oil in a large, heavy pot over a medium fire. Add the flour and cook very slowly, stirring almost constantly. The flour must be cooked to a very dark brown, nearly black but not actually burned. This takes more time than you might think is necessary, but a good roux must be cooked slowly to get the floury taste out of it and to ensure uniformity of color. This is the basic roux. Cajuns will say that a finished roux shines.
Although all roux are pretty much the same in Cajun kitchens, there are variations by some stubborn ol’ cooks.
For instance, after you make the basic roux, you can add a small can of tomato paste, stirring this all the time until the roux returns to the color of the flour before the paste was added. Then add a small can of tomato sauce, stirring this into the mixture until it turns dark brown again.
