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[DJ]

Recently I've been reading Wikipedia articles on sauces and it's tickled my interest. So in the name of science I want to try making one, but me being me I'm not really interested in following a recipe, I'm just improvizing based on what I remember from the articles. Anyway, what I need is for someone who knows about this stuff to tell me if I'm doing something horribly wrong that will wind up ruining the whole meal.

So, my plan is to sautee chicken breast and mushrooms on finely chopped onions. Then I intend to deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine (not sure if I have any, if not I'll just skip it), add two spoons of butter and stir in two spoons of flour to make a roux. In parallel I'll warm up a cup of milk with one clove in it. When the roux is ready I'll stir in the milk, discarding the clove, and spice up the whole thing with a bit of garlic and nutmeg. Then I'll grate in a bit of blue cheese. When the whole thing gets thick I'll put the chicken and mushrooms back in and let it simmer for another 2-3 minutes. I intend to serve this with pasta.

So, yeah, is anything in here clashing with the rest of the recipe?

[Blargityblarg]

I think, but am not certain, that you can't make a roux with any water in the pan. Deglazing the pan with the red wine is therefore going to be a waste, as you'll have to boil it off before the flour is added anyway. You could add it with the milk, though, or even just before the milk.

Make sure your milk is cold when you add it, apparently hot roux + cold liquid means no lumps

Don't be afraid to break out the whisk, especially when putting the milk into your roux, and go slowly, a little at a time

This guy on YouTube has a bunch of videos that have him dealing with roux and other pan sauces, so see if you can find one of those, he explains quite nicely.

[wierd]

That is correct. It's just like making tasty sausage gravy, where you brown the sausage and let it glaze the pan, then add the flour with a bit of black pepper to the hot pan, and gently brown the flour. If there is any moisture in the pan (oil and fat from the sausage is fine) it will make the flour stick, and turn into an inedible ball of gunk.

After the flour has reached the desired brown-ness (Dont overdo it!) you add cold milk to the pan, and stir viggorously. If you add hot milk, it will be lumpy, clumpy, and not taste right.

For your particular sauce, i'd be tempted to add a few tablespoons of sour cream to the cold milk, and blend them together just before adding them to the pan, as the acidity of the cream is very slight, but adds to the savory tartness of such a sauce without overpowering it, and increases the "Umaminess" while only slightly impacting other flavors, especially since dairy is already going to be used. (as opposed to say, tomatoes, which are able to radically change the flavor of a sauce). It is a major component in many recipes for beef stroganov, and many of those also call for a wine addition, though I am a bit confused by the cloves and nutmeg in a savory sauce. (I dont usually use those spices that way. Not saying it wont work, just I have no experience using them that way.)

[DJ]

Yeah, I messed it up. I used unclarified butter for roux, so when it started smoking I turned down the heat and my roux didn't quite cook all the way. So I cooked the sauce longer than I meant to to somewhat remove the floury taste, but I wound up overreducing it and making more of a paste than a sauce. Also, I needed more garlic and I should've soaked cloves in milk as the first step, their taste didn't come through at all. Anyway, I'd call this experiment a failure (not a complete one, as it was still palatable, but it was merely mediocre), but at least I now what to do differently next time. I really should've just stuck with vegetable oil for roux, it's what I normally use when I make it (I only made it for thickening stews, I'm a total newb to saucery).