Preparation time : few seconds
Cooking time : 5 minutes to 1 hour depending of the roux

"First ya make the roux," any Creole grandmother will tell you. You can't learn to cook without first knowing how to make a good roux. A legacy of traditional French cooking, roux is a mixture of flour and fat which thickens gumbos, étouffées and sauces. However unlike most roux in French cooking, in Louisiana roux isn't white, nor quickly prepared. There are three basic types with some variations, usually expressed in terms of colour: the colour of old pennies, of rusty copper, of peanut butter, etc.

• Blond or light roux for gumbo in Creole cooking - 5 minutes
• medium or peanut butter coloured roux for gumbo in Creole cooking - 10 minutes
• dark roux with a smoky, roasted hazelnut flavour, typical of Cajun cooking. It has less thickening power but adds more flavour - 25 minutes or up to an hour over low heat

Start on med heat, add your oil, then your flour. Combine well. Keep checking your heat. It will seem like a long time before you get from thick blond to a looser med peanut butter color. Stay with it, just keep stirring.

The principle is simple: the more you cook a roux, the darker it gets. But you have to watch it carefully - this is no time to go answer the phone. Roux has to be stirred constantly with a whisk or paddle. If little black specks appear, your roux is burnt and you have to start over. Stir carefully, however, because roux isn't called "Creole napalm" for nothing. The smallest spatter of hot roux will burn your skin.