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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from milk, butter, flour, and egg yolk, seasoned with onion, bay leaf, parsley, peppercorns, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Scald the milk with the onion, bay leaf, parsley, and peppercorns.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  4. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until blended.

  5. Gradually add the seasoned milk to the butter and flour mixture, stirring continuously.

Finish with egg yolk

  1. Beat the egg yolk.

  2. Gradually add the hot sauce to the beaten yolk.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and adds body and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot sauce to the beaten yolk. Adding hot sauce too fast can scramble the egg yolk. Adding it gradually, while whisking, warms the yolk gently so it thickens the sauce smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, parsley, butter, flour, egg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, parsley, butter, flour, egg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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