Bechamel sauce is a key ingredient in hundreds of recipes, from simple dishes (such as cream vegetables) to gourmet cheese souffles. Once it was considered a food component intended for wealthy people. But today, most likely, this is the most common sauce in the Western world. What is the composition of bechamel sauce and when is it used in cooking?
What is bechamel sauce?
Also known as white sauce, bechamel is an “ingredient” —a sauce prepared for use in another dish or as the basis for more complex gravy. What is included in bechamel sauce? It consists of milk (whole, which is important!), Heated and condensed with other components. Bechamel is one of the five "mother" sauces of French cuisine. In composition, it is similar to veloutê, which is also an ingredient sauce. The only difference is that bechamel is prepared on the basis of milk, and in veloutê the liquid is presented in the form of broth.
Before the process of cooling and pasteurization of milk began to be carried out industrially with ease, this product was available only to wealthy people. Butter and cheese could be stored without much damage in a cool room or in a summer kitchen, but milk quickly deteriorated, and the growth of bacteria in it could cause illness. Therefore, it was a somewhat extravagant product available to those who could afford to throw away everything that went bad. Because of this, bechamel was associated with wealth and abundance, while veloutê was accessible to the common man. When cooling and pasteurization made milk available, Béchamel took a leading position in popularity due to its association with luxury living.
Bechamel sauce history
If you ever need an example of success, you should not look for some little-known examples. Bechamel sauce will still come first. There are at least four theories regarding its origin that mention several cooks and two countries.
The most famous person in this story is La Varenne, a 17th-century chef who actually founded French classical cuisine. Bechamel sauce was first mentioned in his famous French Cook, published in 1651. The book, written for other professional chefs, changed the cuisine of France and became a bestseller of the 1700s. La Varenne introduced new recipes and reformulated old ones.
Rux paste, prepared by preparing mixed butter and flour, has become the standard method for thickening sauces instead of breadcrumbs or ground almonds, common in medieval recipes. Using this technique, French sauces became smooth and silky, without the grainy texture of previous products.
But does La Varenna really merit the invention of bechamel? Half a century before him, Maria Medici came to France as the bride of Henry IV. As a girl from the rich and cultured Medici family in Florence, Maria brought with her a huge dowry, including cooks who made a very similar sauce that had been prepared in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna for hundreds of years. Antonin Karim, who later called bechamel one of the cornerstones of “mother's” sauces, admitted in 1822 that “the cooks of the second half of the 1700s got acquainted with the taste of Italian cuisine that Catherine de Medici introduced to the French court.”
The invention of this product is often attributed to the Duke de Morne, the provincial governor and open-minded gourmet, who is also called the inventor of moraine sauce, prepared on the basis of bechamel, but containing gruyere and parmesan.
Another contender for the invention of this composition is the Marquise Louis de Bechamel, a wealthy financier with no known culinary knowledge at all. However, she was a contemporary of La Varenna, the favorite of Louis XIV and a famous member of the royal court. Most likely, the sauce was named after her than the fact that she herself had invented it.
Given all circumstances, it can be assumed that the original Béchamel was created by an anonymous chef in northern Italy, modernized by La Varenne and then glorified by Morne.
How to cook bechamel sauce?
The standard recipe for bechamel begins with heating the milk to a very warm state, but not boiling. If you use cold milk, the sauce will turn out lumpy, and not perfectly homogeneous. While the base is heated, the flour is prepared by whipping with ghee and cooking until a light paste is formed. Classic rux assumes an equal amount of butter and flour, but the ratio in the bechamel recipe can vary greatly, depending on how the sauce is used. Warm milk is gradually poured into rox, heated and continuously whipped until the mixture reaches the desired density. Bechamel is traditionally seasoned with white pepper, since black would spoil the snowy whiteness of the product.
Onions with cloves are sometimes added to the sauce as it is heated, and then removed after the aromas are absorbed into other components. This is an addition introduced to the classic recipe in the 19th century, but many chefs now consider it a generally accepted version.
In addition to the moraine sauce mentioned above, bechamel also appears in other famous gravy, including cream sauce, cheddar cheese, mustard and someus (prepared by adding mashed onions to the bechamel). Bechamel sauces are usually mild in taste and most often served with eggs, vegetables, pasta, fish, chicken and veal.
Modern understanding
The recipe, published in mass culinary literature of 1749, gave a modern and traditional version of bechamel sauce. The classic composition, placed in these publications, suggested melting butter in a pan, frying onion peel and root vegetables, green onions and parsley in it. Then there was added cream, salt, black pepper and nutmeg. The product was prepared by quenching, after which it was filtered and served with the addition of additional oil.
The later bechamel sauce already had differences. His recipe included frying chopped shallots, parsley and green onions in butter with the addition of (as before) cream, salt, ground black pepper and nutmeg. After that, parsley was added to the mixture, and then it was served without straining.
A 1750 recipe indicated cooking fish in a broth, then cooling it, and then warming it in bechamel immediately before serving.
Maternal Sauce
The first thing you should know about bechamel is that it is known as a "mother" sauce. This means that it is one of the “building blocks” of classic French cuisine. In other words, it is a sauce that is used to make other sauces. There are five such “mother" compositions.
The modern composition of bechamel sauce is a mixture of butter and flour, which was fried (it is known as rux) with the addition of milk and a small amount of seasoning. The result is a silky, uniform sauce that can be used on its own or as a basis for many other products.
As you can see from the photo, bechamel sauce is very thick. It envelops other products and greatly complements their taste.
How is it being cooked now?
The first step in preparing bechamel is to create rox - a mixture of flour and butter that acts as a thickener. To prepare this base, you should heat the oil in a pan and add the same amount of flour to it. Be sure to thoroughly mix throughout the frying process. This allows you to release a raw smell from the flour. The most important thing is not to overheat the mixture and prevent a significant change in its color.
Once the rox is cooked properly, the next step is to add milk. This is exactly what turns oily rucks into sauce. But it’s not so simple. To create a homogeneous consistency (necessary for bechamel), you need to gradually beat the milk. If you pour it right away, the mixture will become lumpy and unappetizing.
However, knowing what is in the bechamel sauce does not mean knowing how to make it. Different recipes will require different amounts of milk and whipping time. For example, when cooking croquet you will need the sauce to be thick and almost non-spreading, and for lasagna you need to make it more liquid. Once you have reached the desired density, it's time to season the bechamel with salt and nutmeg.
Modern classic recipe
How to cook bechamel sauce at home? In fact, this is a skill that every home cook should have. It is easy to make, and it is one of the most versatile sauces for preparing various dishes. To make Bechamel sauce at home, you need the following:
- half a glass of butter, diced;
- half a glass of flour;
- 2-3 cups of whole milk;
- a pinch of cayenne pepper;
- half a teaspoon of mustard powder;
- a pinch of ground / grated nutmeg;
- pepper and salt to taste.
This is a classic composition for the main sauce. It can be part of many complex dishes and gravy to them.
How to make bechamel sauce: recipe with photo
Melt the butter in a deep pan and add the flour. Stir until smooth, then slowly pour milk in small portions. Beat the mixture constantly with a fork until the mixture thickens. Next, a step-by-step recipe for bechamel sauce looks simple, but requires attention.
As soon as you reach the stage of thickening the mixture, reduce the heat, put the spices and let them soak in other components, stirring constantly. Final cooking will take about 7-10 minutes on low heat.
After the sauce is cooked (it should be completely uniform, without flour lumps), season it to taste. As you can see, the recipe for bechamel sauce at home is not very difficult.
How to use it?
So, you managed to cook this product. Now you are probably wondering: how to use it? There are actually many ways. You can just spread it on dried bread. This sauce is an excellent binder for classic lasagna.
In addition, you can take the French application as a standard. In this country, it is used as the basis for the preparation of some fancy sauces, such as Mornay, Nantuan or Soubise.
But in fact, all you need to know is that you are able to cook bechamel sauce at home according to the modern classic recipe. This is a universal creamy white sauce, which can serve as the basis for any dish that you want to cook. If you wish, you can add aromatic herbs, cheese, lemon zest or chili powder to it. This is the versatility of bechamel.
An example of the use of this sauce
As noted above, the composition of the bechamel sauce is represented by ingredients with a delicate and relatively neutral taste. This means that you can add it to most different dishes. For example, in pasta with minced beef. To prepare this dish, you will need the following:
- 1 pack (50 grams) of medium-sized penne or other tubular paste
- 500 grams of lean ground beef;
- 1/2 large sweet onion, chopped;
- 2 medium garlic cloves, minced;
- 240 ml of tomato sauce;
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil;
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp salts;
- a glass of bechamel sauce.
How to cook a dish with this sauce (example)
In this case, ground beef is cooked with bechamel sauce and tomato, baked with pasta. Place a large frying pan on a small fire, pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil on it. Sauté the ground beef, breaking the lumps during cooking. When the meat changes color, add chopped onion. Sauté the minced meat with the onion for several minutes.
Grind and add two minced cloves of garlic to the meat and mix well. When the mince is ready, and the onion becomes almost transparent, put the tomato sauce. Add 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp cinnamon and simmer in tomato sauce over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Then remove the pan from the heat.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and put a couple of teaspoons of salt in it. Put the pasta and leave to cook until the al dente stage. It usually takes about 10-12 minutes. When the pasta is ready, discard it in a colander to dry. Rinse them with cold water to stop the cooking process.
Put half pasta on the bottom of the baking dish. Pour a third cup of bechamel on top and mix thoroughly. Add the ground beef mixture in an even layer and grease with bechamel again. Then cover the meat with the remaining half of the pasta. Pour the rest of the bechamel on top.
Place the completed baking dish in the oven on the middle rack and bake for 25 minutes. Cool slightly and serve.