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Dave Smith[_1_] Dave Smith[_1_] is offline
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Default Making a White Sauce

On 2016-10-22 6:58 AM, Alan Holbrook wrote:
> Every once in a while, when I get the feeling that my arteries are still
> too flexible and my heart isn't working hard enough pumping blood, I'll
> make a large skillet of sawmill gravy and pour it over biscuits for
> breakfast. The recipe I follow says, as do all the other recipes I've seen
> that involve making a white sauce, that once you have the roux the color
> you want, you should take the pan off the heat to add the milk. I've often
> wondered why that is and what would happen if you added the milk directly
> to the pan containing the roux while it's still on the burner. Rather than
> risk seven years' bad luck or something similar trying it, I thought I'd
> ask. Can any of the RFC intelligentsia enlighten me?


If you add the milk to the roux in a hot pan it tends to coagulate very
quickly and you end up with a lumpy sauce. It is not the end of the
world. You and whisk it like mad for a long time or maybe use a stick
blender to removed the lumps. It is easier to simply take it off the
heat and avoid the lumps.