Béchamel
The white mother sauce — milk thickened with a white roux
The first of Escoffier's five mother sauces, and the one worth learning first because the technique — roux, then liquid, then patience — is the same for Velouté and Espagnole. The only real mistakes are browning the roux and adding the milk too fast.
Equal weights of butter and flour, one quart of milk. That gives a medium sauce that coats a spoon. Halve the roux for something pourable, double it for a soufflé base.
Ingredients
- 2 ounces (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter
- 2 ounces (about 1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
- 1 quart whole milk
- 1 small onion, peeled and halved
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 whole cloves
- Freshly grated nutmeg
- Kosher salt and white pepper
Instructions
- Stud the onion halves with the cloves and pin the bay leaf to one of them. Put them in a saucepan with the milk and bring slowly to a bare simmer. Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 15 minutes, then strain.
- In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking, for 2 to 3 minutes, until it smells faintly of biscuits. Do not let it colour — this is a white roux.
- Add the warm milk a ladle at a time, whisking each addition smooth before the next. The first two additions will look alarming; keep whisking and it comes together.
- Once all the milk is in, simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon and no longer tastes of raw flour.
- Season with salt, white pepper and a little nutmeg. Strain through a fine sieve if you want it perfectly smooth.
Notes
- A round of buttered parchment on the surface stops a skin forming.
- Keeps 3 days refrigerated. Reheat gently with a splash of milk.
- The onion, clove and bay infusion is the classical onion piqué. Skip it and you still have béchamel, just a plainer one.
- Derivatives: Mornay (cheese), Soubise (onion), Nantua (crayfish), Crème (cream).