Cooking Class #3

Class was all about thickening agents, stocks, and sauces. The most challenging part of the whole day was waking up at 5:30 to be at class at 7am. On a Saturday.

Our homework assignment was to make a roux. Definition of roux: a cooked mixture of flour and fat used as a thickening agent in a soup or a sauce.

So all twenty-three of us set our little plastic containers of roux in front of us for the chef's inspection. He picked up each one, looked at it, smelled it, and then...

"What kind of flour did you use?"

"Did you use clarified butter?"

"What kind of pan did you use?"

He was able to tell if vegetable oil was used in place of butter; if the butter was salted or unsalted; if the flour was stale. He might as well have been the Amazing Kreskin.