Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

The ordinary method of thickening soups (when they are not made unwholesome and expensive by the addition of cream and eggs) is to use what is called by French cooks Roux. Roux can be made either white or brown. To make it, melt two ounces of butter at the bottom of a saucepan over a slow fire, and when it is thoroughly melted add, little by little, two and a half ounces of flour. Stir well with a wooden spoon till the butter and flour are thoroughly mixed together. Reduce the heat still more, and let the Roux cook very slowly. White Roux must not be allowed to be more than cream colour, and it generally requires a quarter of an hour’s cooking. Brown Roux should be of a warm reddish-brown colour, and will take from twenty to twenty-five minutes to cook. If it is overdone it will be ugly in colour and bitter in taste. The flour must be added very gently, and the Roux slowly cooked. If not, the mixture will be lumpy, and there will be a taste of rawr flour. Roux is so often needed in sauces as well as in soups that it is worth while to make some to go on with. If the proportions of one pound of flour to half a pound of butter are used Roux will keep quite well. Prepared Corn Flours should never be used, nor potatoes, but some cooks put into the Roux whilst it is cooking a bouquet of herbs, containing three leaves of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a shallot well pricked, and two bay leaves. The bouquet, tied together with twine, is removed as soon as it has THICKENED SOUPS ' given its flavour to the Roux. But, as a rule, it ’is best to use only good dry well-sifted flour and good butter for making Roux. The cook must bear in mind that the Roux must not be added to the soup, but the soup gently poured over the Roux , off the fire. Stir well, so as to avoid lumps, and when the soup and Roux are thoroughly mixed into each other put the soup back on the fire and let it boil up. If the soup is too thin add an ounce of home-made glaze. The soup will be greasy and lumpy if this process is not very carefully followed. Two ounces of Roux will be sufficient to thicken one quart of soup. If anything containing milk, cream, eggs, or butter, has to be added to the soup, the soup must be slightly cooled, and the additions made at the last minute before serving. The soup is easily cooled by taking it off the fire for a few minutes. Roux contains butter, and therefore is too rich an addition to soups in many cases. An excellent thickening of soups can be made by adding arrowroot, or rice-flour. For a quart of soup take an ounce and a half of rice-flour (the French creme de riz) . Mix it very slowly and carefully with a little of the soup, putting the rice-flour in a small basin and adding the soup little by little. When the mixture looks like thick cream pour it through a pointed strainer into the soup, which should be hot but not boiling. Stir well, let the soup boil up, and then let it simmer for ten minutes. [Wyvern.] Thickened soups ought always to be passed through a strainer, as lumps cannot be avoided in every case, even by the most careful cook.