Frigidaire Compact 30 repair saga, continued...

[danemodsandy]

For Someone....

....Who claims never to have made a roux before, you managed to do everything right!

The main thing is to cook the roux until all raw taste of flour is gone, and your instincts were spot on the money.

A roux can be frozen, which not many people think of, but you also got that part right.

I'd say you're way ahead of most people.

The worst gravies and sauces are those made with that damn flour/water mixture stirred into stock and then simmered briefly ("until thickened"). Fine for those who liked eating library paste when they were kids, but not so good for the rest of us. And recipes with this thickening are all over the place in '50s cookbooks.

 

[sudsmaster]

Thanks, Sandy. I did consult the Joy of Cooking midway through the roux... right about where I got the flour mixed in and then started to wonder how long it should cook. JOC set me on the right path of getting the raw flour taste out.

Where I diverged from the book is that I cooked it basically only in the fat to get rid of the raw taste, not with any addition of broth. Then I added enough broth to get a nice texture, and saved half that as a roux/starter. The rest of the roux got the rest of the broth to make the gravy.

According to JOC, the proper way is to use a vegetable broth and simmer it for hours. Well, I don't have the time for that, at least not after a nine hour crock pot process. However I think the inclusion of sliced onions under the roast gave some vegetable character to the broth.

What surprised me was the taste of the finished roux. Really kind of delightful.

 

[danemodsandy]

Suds:

You turned to exactly the right resource; The Joy of Cooking is a really fine cookbook, and the older editions from the '60s and '70s are the best ones. I personally rate Joy up there with Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, if not better for its incredible trove of information about foodstuffs and how to deal with them.

I myself cook a roux for a long time, at least 30 minutes. The longer it cooks, the more flavor develops and the more complex it is. Once stock is added, what was a roux becomes a velouté, and again, a long, slow simmer does wonders. An hour minimum yields the best result. If it thickens a bit too much, adding stock to bring it back to the proper consistency (about that of a full-bodied oil) is the fix.

The final touch for a really fine velouté is straining; there are always little bits of something in it. A fine-mesh strainer is a help here; just strain it direct from the pan into the sauceboat. Straining also aerates the sauce just a bit, lightening its texture.

There is a huge difference in this result and the usual "gravy" one encounters in most homes.

P.S.: Roux-making puts you in command of several very valuable sauces. With stock, it's a velouté. With milk, it's a béchamel. Add cheese (Gruyère or Swiss being the classic choice) and you have a Mornay. For a velouté, the roux can be browned (a roux brun) or not (a roux blond) according to the color and taste you want in the finished sauce. You vary the color of the roux by the amount of heat used to cook it; higher heat colors it more, of course.

Béchamel nowadays is usually used as a basis for other things, like Mornay or creamy vegetable soups. These sauces always use a roux blond.

 

[norgeway]

Re Roux!

I agree Sandy, I cook a roux very slowly for at least 25 to 30 minutes, you must have patience to get good results....that roast looks great!To make everyday old fashioned brown gravy, I use equal parts fat, "Usually sausage, fatback or bacon grease, " and flour, cooked slowly until brown, then add boiling evaporated milk/water mixture and stir with a whisk like mad until smooth, then add salt and pepper to taste, to me, the evaporated milk makes much richer gravy., same for chicken gravy, except I use some of the fat in which the chicken was fried, being sure to scrape the brown bits clinging to the pan into the roux.

 

[sudsmaster]

Well, I probably cooked this roux for at least 20 minutes, maybe 30. I kept at it until it had the taste I described. That seemed like a good result. Almost sweet, but complex.

The part that I didn't like about the JOC recipe is that it says to add a cup of vegetable stock to the fat before adding the flour. That just didn't seem right to me. I wanted to introduce the flour to the fat first, and cook that to the point where the flour no longer had a raw taste. Then I started adding the stock until I got the desired result. It seemed to work. Did I do wrong? Or is the order of addition in the JOC incorrect?

 

[danemodsandy]

Suds:

You did NOT do wrong - what you did is classic French sauce-making technique since time immemorial. I have less than no idea what the writers of Joy were thinking.

What edition of Joy do you have? The addition of stock to a roux sounds like a new technique designed to reduce calorie count or something. Older editions of Joy stuck to classic technique, where the roux is made first and then the liquid introduced.

Roux-making has become more complicated since trans fats became the latest bugbear. It used to be that for everyday dishes like homemade macaroni and cheese, a roux made with a quality margarine worked just fine. Now, margarine's chemistry is different, the water content is very high, and you no longer get the "sizzle" of flour and fat cooking together; you get a sodden, doughy mess that doesn't want to do much of anything except stick to the pan.

So, these days, it has to be butter or another fat; margarine won't do. I'm aware that Land 'O Lakes makes a "baker's margarine" with a low water content, but the price is so high that careful shopping will turn up butter for the same price or very little more.

A properly made roux sizzles a bit, and it puffs as it cooks. If liquid gets into a roux before it is completely cooked, the resulting sauce will never have the flavor it could have had if the roux had been well-made.

So, I don't know what the current writers of Joy have as their agenda. Go get yourself a 1970s edition if you want Joy at its best.

 

[sudsmaster]

Ah, the edition I referred to is the 1975 edition. In fact I have five different copies of JOC, from 1967 to the 2000's: 1967, 1975 (1975 printing), 1975 (1991 reprint), 1997 edition, and 2006 edition. All of these basically describe a roux about the same: add flour to warmed fat and stir/heat gently. It's when they refer the reader the actual sauce preparation that it all falls apart.

In the 1975 edition section about roux, it says to cook just the fat (or butter) with the flour until the raw taste is gone. I got that. However, it also discusses various types of sauces made with roux, and for example the reference it gives for brown sauce doesn't mention roux at all, but rather has one adding 1 cup of mirepoix (a vegetable broth) to 1/2 cup fat drippings, then stirring in 1/2 cup flour until the flour browns. This is the part that is confusing!

The section in the 1967 edition on veal blanchette has one "combining" the fat and flour separately, but doesn't mention anything about heating it till the raw taste subsides. Instead it has one adding it directly to the veal stock.

Which just goes to show, a good cook can't just go by the book because the book may be inconsistent or confusing. One's taste and other senses have to go into it as well, with the constant thought: "Is this ingredient or component something I would enjoy eating?".
[this post was last edited: 12/11/2013-11:54]

 

[danemodsandy]

Suds:

That recipe for veal Blanchette is describing what is called buerre manié (say "burr mon-YAY"), which is a quick way of thickening a sauce. The combination of flour and butter melts in the stock, dispersing the flour evenly and preventing lumps. It still has to be cooked after the initial thickening takes place. Buerre manié has its uses, but it always makes a sauce lighter in color (not always desirable) and it does not always have the same full, rich flavor of a sauce made with a fully cooked roux. That works for some dishes, but doesn't for others. Notice that veal Blanchette is a fairly creamy, bland dish to begin with.

I will have to look at Joy when time permits; I have the same 1975 edition you do. I want to see what they're talking about; do you have a page number?

 

[sudsmaster]

PS-After making the roux and gravy on the Compact 30, I've become somewhat more comfortable with cooking on an electric range. The wide flat Frigidaire heating elements seem to be pretty reliable. The only other electric range I've used was an older GE with pushbutton controls on the back panel. Impossible to clean those buttons, as I recall. It was ok, but I never really knew if the button selection was being translated into watts at the element.

What I like about the electric GM range is that the heat seems like it's fairly reliable, and one doesn't have to peek under the pan to figure out what heat level has been selected. It's on the dial. Of course, if one is going from a high heat to a low heat, that can take longer than on a gas range, so I find lifting the pan to let things cool down a bit helps in such situations.

The downside of the GM elements is that they appear to be not quite as flat as I'd like. Typically on both the 8" elements, the pan contact the outer section of the coil first. This can be observed by the darker color of the outer coil when the burner is set to maximum with a pan full of water on it. The inner part stays bright red. It can also be observed when cooking (as in the roux), when the outer section of the pan simmers more than the inner section. When I get a chance I'll put a straight edge on a cool burner to check for flatness.

 

[sudsmaster]

Sandy,

Check the index on the '75 edition. In mine, the discussion of roux is around page 338. The discussion about the brown sauce, around page 346. The white sauce, around 343, if I recall correctly (sick cat on my lap at present, can't get up and check!).

 

[danemodsandy]

Suds:

I'll check my copy of Joy when time permits, which it probably won't today.

One useful trick when cooking on the average electric range: Leave a burner empty if you possibly can. That way, if something needs to go from high heat to low, move it from the burner with high heat to an empty burner and turn that burner's heat to low.

Also, I used to tell my cooking students this one all the time (I taught for much of the '80s; seems like centuries ago now): If something is getting overheated while cooking on an electric burner, pick up the pan. It has a handle for a reason. I can't tell you how often I've seen people fiddle with the knob desperately while the food in the pan burns. If the food's burning, the knob is not going to help.

If you know what you're doing, electric burners are as user-friendly as anything out there. When I taught, I routinely made hand-held Hollandaise and Béarnaise over direct heat with nothing but a pan and a whisk - no double boilers, no food processor, no blender, no tricky gadgets of any kind. All it took was watching the egg yolks while I was whisking; when wisps of steam started coming off them, I would pick the pan up off the heat and continue whisking until the steam wisps died down. Then the pan would go back on the burner for more whisking until steam showed up again. Lather, rinse, repeat until I had a beautiful thick creamy sauce. I left one guest teacher from Ireland speechless doing that; as accomplished as he was using restaurant equipment - and that was very accomplished indeed - he'd never made his peace with an electric burner.

You'll need to practice, but I can tell you'll do fine.

 

[sudsmaster]

Yes, that's exactly what I did: move the pan to an empty cool burner when it got too hot, or when I had to leave it momentarily to go fetch something (like the Joy of Cooking book!). You see just that in the photo above of the finished roux.

I've also used the lift pan technique on the gas range. The heavy cast iron grates can hold significant heat and if you need to stop the process quickly, lifting the pan while turning down the flame will get it done the quickest. The only problem is when one has a large double handled pot on the burner... then lifting it can be a bit tricky, and can risk spillage (as in a full pasta pot or heavy cast iron utensil). But when I start testing the pressure canner on the C30 I'll make sure to leave a burner empty to help slow things down in a hurry.

 

[norgeway]

RE Margarine

I use the Land O Lakes or Ingles Laura Lynn brand, both with 80% oil , they work fine in cooking and baking, and dont cost any more than regular , much less than butter, im not a butter addict, believe it or not I like the taste of margarine better.

 

[danemodsandy]

Hans:

Up here in Iowa, the Land O'Lakes is $1.79 a pound, and I can buy butter for $2.09 regularly, sometimes less on sale.

And we don't have Ingles up here, only Hy-Vee, about which the less said the better.

If it were not for ALDI, Walmart and Fareway, I would starve.

 

[norgeway]

Oh Mercy!!!

Butter here is about 3.99 a pound!!! We have Food Lion, Ingles, Harris Teeter, Lowers and Whole Foods, oh yeah, Fresh Market and Trader Joes...and I still cant get peppermint ice cream any time but December!!!makes me mad as H#$%

 

[danemodsandy]

Hans:

I feel your pain. You should try getting a mincemeat pie or Crosse & Blackwell mincemeat filling up here; mincemeat pie is evidently not an Iowa thang, at least not nowadays. *

Hy-Vee grudgingly puts out a few jars of Crosse & Blackwell mincemeat at the holidays, like six per store. And when they're gone, they're gone. Don't even ask about a pie already made; they'll look at you like you were soliciting memberships for the Communist Party. And that's not just Hy-Vee, it's everywhere.

* I'm told by my older friends here that lots of Iowa traditions have died out or are dying out under the onslaught of frozen dinners and fast-food joints. A good pork supper can be enjoyed only in someone's home these days, same for beef and noodles. Finding fruitcake at the holidays is doable, but getting harder every year. I don't think many people under 30 here has ever tasted homemade bread, jam, jelly or preserves (or for that matter, a vegetable other than French fries or the tomato sauce on pizza).

It's sad, because this is a state with a rich culinary tradition based in pork production, and fine people who deserve something better than McDonald's to eat. [this post was last edited: 12/11/2013-15:32]

 

[simplicity345]

compact 30 range

If Your Oven Is Not Working You May Want To Check The Relay If Your Frigidaire Compact 30 Range Has A Relay On Ours It Was Behind The Surface Element Switches And That May Be Your Problem

 

[sudsmaster]

I tested the oven and it works within 10 degrees of the dial setting. I have not tested the self-cleaning feature, however. When I was working on the burner control I did see the relay in there. So if the self-cleaning feature doesn't work I'll check out the relay.

 

[combo52]

Oven Relay For Frigidaire SC Oven

The same relay makes the oven bake, broil or clean so if the oven bakes and does not clean it is not a bad relay.

 

[sudsmaster]

it is not a bad relay

Thanks.

One less thing to worry about.