Roux Hoo!

Well folks, I can check another cooking basic off my list! I successfully made my first roux. The weird part was, it really wasn't that difficult. At all. In fact, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out just how exactly I messed it up before...

The roux was the base of the sauce for the Asparagus-Goat Cheese Pasta I made for dinner last night. I had some asparagus from my Bountiful Basket and, in an attempt to hold onto any part of my Persian roots, I make it a rule to always have some goat cheese on hand. Am I the only one who gets excited when an additional trip to the store for specialty ingredients is not required?

I took only one creative liberty with this recipe and it was NOT to add jalapenos! Besides the asparagus, I also had some broccoli that was quickly approaching its "use by" date.

I blanched 1 head of broccoli (no stalks) with the asparagus.

If adding more green things to a dish is wrong, I don't think I want to be right!

I blanched the veggies and boiled the pasta a few hours before I even got started on the sauce. That being said, this is a great recipe to keep in your back pocket for nights when you know you won't have much cooking time. You can do the prep work when you have the time and throw it together a few minutes before you are ready to eat. 

I think I would have to say the trick to a good roux-based sauce is patience (is it just me or is that word making repeat appearances in my writing?). I'm guessing that in the past, I rushed and therefore failed to fully incorporate the flour or got the roux too hot, too fast. Going about it at a more leisurely pace resulted in a much better consistency than anything I'd created in the past. 

Starting the roux

The master of roux (okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself)

Looks pretty good, am I right?

Now, if there are two things Eric fears in this world they are spiders and stinky cheese. I could tell Eric was a little nervous about the final product. He kept coming into the kitchen to check out what was going on/mentally prepare for a potentially potent cheese flavor. In his defense, during the cooking process, it smelled pretty goat-cheesy in the kitchen. But fear not, fellow stinky cheese fearers! The taste was actually quite mild. It reminded both Eric and me of a lighter-tasting Alfredo sauce. 

As for how it tasted, overall it was pretty delicious. But Eric and I both felt something was missing after we had our first bites. The recipe called for the pasta to be topped with grated Parmesan cheese. I had the shaky stuff. If you want to make this recipe, I suggest trying it with freshly grated Parmesan cheese (or something comparable). I think it would have added just the right amount of saltyness to the dish.  If you don't have (or don't want to run to the store just for) fancy cheese, an extra pinch of salt did the trick for us last night. I just think better cheese would have been a lot more satisfying.