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Bechamel Sauce

A sauce made from a fowl broth, veal or gelatin, cream, and arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut up the carcase of the fowl and place it in a saucepan with the bacon bones.

  2. Add veal or gelatine, carrot, onion, mace, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Pour in enough water to cover the ingredients and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the broth and skim off any grease, reducing it to about ¾ cup.

Finish the sauce

  1. Mix the reduced broth with an equal quantity of boiling cream and thicken with arrowroot.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + arrowroottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fowl carcase
Provides the main meaty flavour and body for the broth that forms the sauce base.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a glossy sauce as it is heated.
Veal or gelatine
Adds body and a lightly gelled richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with arrowroot. Arrowroot thickens only when the liquid is hot, and it can break down or turn thin if overheated or boiled too long, so the sauce should be heated gently just until it thickens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, onion, cream, arrowroot):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, cream, arrowroot. 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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