Thread: Gumbo Roux
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Old Sat, Feb-03-18, 11:57
Meetow Kim Meetow Kim is offline
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Plan: Atkins Concept
Stats: 225/190/175 Male 70.5"
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Location: Central Virginia
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Update.

I finally tried to make the roux with coconut flour, and it worked...sort of.

I have pics but this site makes it too hard to post them nicely, so, flying blind here except links to the pics of others.

Coconut flour will remain stable while making a penny colored roux like this proper roux you find in this blog post:

http://www.foodlustpeoplelove.com/2...-make-roux.html

For those that have chimed in here and dont really know what I was referring to, THAT is real Gumbo roux. My chicken sausage gumbo last night looked very much like the picture at the bottom of that page, but I cut my chicken up smaller.

But, alas...this was still NOT proper gumbo I made with coconut flour. While the coconut flour does take on an almost chocolate sweet aroma when you "brown-roux" it like this, it simply DOES NOT have the flavor profile that IS Cajun cooking and a proper gumbo.

Don't get me wrong, my "almost gumbo" was delicious and hearty...we enjoyed it, but in the end, coconut flour is not the answer.

The flavor was not what it needed to be for my experiment and search to find a low carb roux fix to be considered finished, and I have also found that coconut flour remains very "granular" even when cooked. So the texture of the gumbo liquid had that almost "corn mealy" mouth feel...and thats NOT where I want to be in my quest.

I have also learned that coconut flour's granular nature remains no matter what the recipe. So far I have found it to be best in a breading/coating for baked food like chicken, where the coarseness of the flour is not a negative, and also I found a really good low carb wrap recipe that uses it along with almond milk...and of course, eggs.

On another note, I also got some xanthan gum, and carefully used a little bit in the gumbo. I think it did help make up for some of the loss of the thickening and mouth feel of a white flour roux. It's really not a bad substitute making Gumbo this way, but I will quest on to make it better somehow and will report back anything I discover. Next up....probably almond flour.

In the future, after I have lost my weight and in holding and maintaining mode, I may be able to use an all natural wheat flour, or even white flour to make my roux. It would be a splurge and not something I make all the time. when I break it down, white flour is around 23 grams net carbs per 1/4 cup. The way I make gumbo uses 1/4 cup flour. The batch makes at least 4 good sized servings (usually more), so at roughly 6 grams net carbs max per serving, real flour could be an acceptable splurge in a maintenance mode of 40-100 grams carbs daily. I'll probably stick with very minimally refined flours in the future though. That will be the end of the road for my experiments on this before succumbing to white flour even in a splurge, for now its other lower carb alternatives to experiment with.

Stay tuned.
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