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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from butter, flour, onion, ham, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux and flavouring

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Add the sliced onion, ham, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook until it begins to color slightly.

Add milk and finish

  1. Moisten with the milk and stir until boiling.

  2. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

  3. Strain and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Butter
Fat that coats the flour to form a roux, carrying flavour and richness into the sauce.
Flour
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce body as it heats.
Milk
Liquid base that becomes the sauce, providing creaminess and body.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks in the butter.

The step that matters

Moisten with the milk and stir until boiling. Adding cold milk to hot roux can clump the flour. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly as the milk heats and the starch granules swell.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ham, pepper, milk. 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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