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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from butter, flour, stock, cream, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour mixed with salt, pepper, and nutmeg; stir to a smooth paste and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Gradually add the hot chicken stock, stirring constantly.

  4. Stir in the hot cream while continuing to stir.

Finish with egg yolks

  1. Beat the egg yolks slightly and dilute with some of the hot sauce.

  2. Combine the mixtures and beat again, but do not allow the sauce to boil after adding the egg yolks.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Butter
Forms the roux base with flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Chicken stock
Supplies the main liquid and savory flavor of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the sauce, adding body and richness.
Cream
Adds smoothness and richness, softening the sauce's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set with heat and can curdle or turn grainy if the sauce boils, so the sauce must stay below boiling once the yolks go in.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, butter, flour, egg, cream. 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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