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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made with white stock, cream, parsley, herbs, cloves, salt, and arrowroot.

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

Why it works: Parsley and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 137 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the parsley and herbs finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine white stock and cream or milk.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, herbs, cloves, and salt.

  3. Bring to a simmer.

  4. Dissolve the arrowroot in a little cold water and stir into the sauce.

  5. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

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 + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + arrowroottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cream + arrowroottop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Parsley + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,392 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

White stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavour.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dissolved arrowroot and cooking until thickened. Arrowroot must be dissolved in cold water first so it does not clump. Stirring constantly while the sauce heats keeps the starch evenly dispersed, so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps or a thin, uneven texture.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, 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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