1 cup all-purpose flour
Put the flour in a heavy skillet and place over moderate heat.
Stir the flour around often with a wooden spoon as it cooks.
Pay attention to the cooking because the flour will take a few minutes, 5 or 7, to begin coloring. At this point you have a blond “roux.” For the next 5 or 7 minutes it will darken until it reaches a light wood color. Stir constantly to keep the flour in the bottom of the skillet moving so it will not burn, and so all the flour in the pan will color evenly. The whole process takes about 15 minutes of close attention to get a good rich “roux.”
Whether or not you are familiar with cooking a roux with oil, you must pay attention to the color here because when the flour is cooked without oil it will not become as brown as we eventually want it to. That is, not until you mix it with an equal amount of liquid to add it to a dish. At that point the moisture will cause it to darken properly.
The recipes call for dry roux in quantities of a tablespoon or so at a time. What you don’t use immediately can be stored unrefrigerated in a tightly capped jar almost indefinitely.