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Béchamel Sauce |
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Ingredients: A basic white sauce that is so versatile with
additions of cheese, herbs,
chili peppers, cream vs. milk vs. stock etc.
- 4 tablespoons butter or olive oil
- 4 tablespoons flour
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- white pepper, as desired
- 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard, optional
- 2 cups milk or half and half
In batter bowl, combine butter or oil, flour, salt and pepper. Microwave
on high 30 seconds. Whisk in milk or half and half.
Microwave on high 2 minutes. Whisk
well. Microwave 2 minutes and whisk.
Repeat as needed to thicken sauce. (If
using cheese for a cheese sauce, add now and whisk to melt.)
Sauces and Marinades |
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Béchamel
Sauce, also known as white sauce, is a basic
sauce that is used as the base for other
sauces, such as Mornay sauce, which is
Béchamel and cheese. This basic sauce, one
of the mother sauces of French cuisine, is
usually made today by whisking scalded milk
gradually into a white flour-butter roux,
though it can also be made by whisking a
kneaded flour-butter beurre manié into
scalded milk. The thickness of the final
sauce depends on the proportions of milk and
flour.
When it was invented, sauce Béchamel was a
slow simmering of milk, veal stock and
seasonings, strained, with an enrichment of
cream. The sauce under its familiar name
first appeared in Le Cuisinier François,
(published in 1651), by François Pierre La
Varenne (1615 – 1678), chef de cuisine to
Nicolas Chalon du Blé, marquis d'Uxelles.
The foundation of French cuisine, the
Cuisinier François ran through some thirty
editions in seventy-five years. The sauce
was named to flatter a courtier, Louis de
Béchameil, marquis de Nointel (1630 – 1703),
a financier, sometime intendant of Brittany,
who is sometimes mistakenly credited with
having invented it. Many chefs would now
regard as authoritative the recipe of
Auguste Escoffier presented in Saulnier's
Répertoire: "White roux moistened with milk,
salt, onion stuck with clove, cook for 20
minutes". |
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