Photos by Shannon Richardson
One of the best things about the holidays—and the cooler seasons in general—is the presence of sauces and gravies on our tables. There’s just something comforting about ladling warm soups and stews into a bowl, or enjoying proteins drenched in rich sauce.
Ask an experienced chef to share the secret of killer sauciness in the kitchen and you’re likely to hear the French word roux.
It’s pronounced “roo,” and this foundational element of French cuisine serves as a thickening agent for all kinds of culinary liquids. As versatile as it is velvety, roux develops complex flavors when you prepare it, adding layers of depth to almost any dish.
Located downtown, Sunday’s Kitchen supplies some of the best French-adjacent Cajun-Creole flavors in the Panhandle. Chef Ron Granger is now celebrating five years in operation, so we asked him to share how he values and uses roux in his dishes.
Roux, Granger says, starts with fat. For some restaurants, that means vegetable oil. But for authentic French cooking and some of the most popular menu items at Sunday’s Kitchen, it means butter or fat mixed with flour.
“We always save bacon fat,” Granger says. “We keep a can of bacon fat around and always keep butter around. I feel those make the best, most flavorful roux and bases no matter what you’re going to make. You can use canola oil or something like that, but it just doesn’t impart the same flavor as butter or protein from the animal you may be cooking with.”
That fat is at the base of everything from his sausage gravy to his hollandaise sauce. “Our gumbo, etouffee, everything—it all starts with butter,” he says.
Granger also makes liberal use of what he calls the “Trinity” of vegetables: bell pepper, celery and onions, combined with garlic and fats. “Even people from Louisiana will come around and go, ‘Oh, your gumbo is so good.’ Well, the trick is, I’m using oxtail fat, bacon fat and butter to start my roux.”
As a result, he admits that a frequent Sunday’s Kitchen patron may note slightly different flavors from week to week in dishes like his jambalaya or chicken, sausage and shrimp gumbo. That’s because Granger works hard to mimic home-cooking rather than mass production. “We keep our vegetable waste and make a stock out of it. When we boil our shrimp for our shrimp dishes, we keep that water and make our etouffee out of it. So the stock might have a shrimpier flavor than it did last week, or I might have more bacon fat around this week,” Granger explains. “It may not always taste exactly the same, but it’s always good. It’s always rich, flavorful.”
Sunday’s Kitchen relies on the locally owned 4B Meats to supply the restaurant’s high-quality Wagyu beef, including oxtails. Granger shared with us some of his favorite dishes and recipes which make use of stock or roux as a base.
Red Eye Gravy
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, divided
½ cup strong black coffee
¼ cup water or Dr. Pepper (Coca Cola works, as well)
¼ teaspoon light brown sugar
Pinch freshly ground coarse black pepper
Brown bacon or ham in a pan; set aside and reserve drippings for another use. Add butter to pan and melt, scraping up all cooked-on bits as you stir. Add coffee. For a sweeter, richer, darker gravy use soda (water works fine, too). After mixture begins to bubble, add sugar and continue to mix until completely dissolved. Allow to sit on a medium-low stoke and reduce until desired consistency is achieved, slowly stirring. Add black pepper when it’s complete, and serve over a ham or bacon biscuit with over-easy eggs, or however you prefer.
Sausage Gravy
1 pound ground pork sausage
3 tablespoons bacon grease
¼ cup all-purpose flour
3 cups milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground sage
Add sausage to hot skillet with bacon fat; cook until browned. Add flour and mix until incorporated. Add salt and pepper and slowly add room temperature or warm milk while stirring; continue stirring until gravy is smooth, thick and creamy. Add sage and serve over warm, freshly made biscuits.
Beef Gravy
3 cups beef broth or stock
6 tablespoons flour
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium bell pepper, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
3 ½ tablespoons butter or beef tallow
¾ teaspoon garlic powder
¾ teaspoon onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon beef bouillon base
¼ bunch fresh parsley, chopped
1 bay leaf (optional)
1 teaspoon browning sauce (optional)
Melt butter or tallow on medium heat; add flour and cook until slightly darker than peanut butter, stirring constantly. Add diced vegetables until thoroughly mixed and onions are translucent. Add garlic and onion powder, bay leaf and beef bouillon. Cook gently until all is incorporated. Slowly add stock and browning sauce and bring to a simmer, stirring often. After desired consistency is achieved, add parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Gravy will thicken as it sits.
Grandma’s Gravy
¾ cup drippings from roasted chicken, duck or turkey (white wine or cognac can be added to deglaze the pan)
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ stick or ¼ cup of butter
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 small onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 ribs celery
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon dried parsley
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Saute vegetables in a warm pan until tender and slightly browned; add butter until melted, then add flour, mixing until smooth. Continuously scrape brown bits from bottom of pan. Once mixture is fully incorporated and has a lightly toasted look, add drippings from roasted poultry and warm stock to mixture; stir constantly while on a medium simmer. Add parsley, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and let simmer until gravy is thick and smooth. Add more stock for a thinner gravy and less for a thicker consistency. For an optional creamy twist, add
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream when finished.
Hollandaise Sauce
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice, or more as desired for flavor
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (no substitutions)
¼ teaspoon salt
Pinch cayenne pepper
½ cup or 1 stick unsalted butter
Melt butter in microwave for about 1 minute until hot. Combine egg yolks, lemon juice, dijon, salt and cayenne pepper into a high-powered blender; blend for 5 seconds. Slowly stream hot butter into the mixture as the blender is running. Pour the sauce into a small bowl and drizzle over your meal.
