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Bechamel, or White Sauce

A creamy sauce made from veal, ham, butter, flour, broth, spices, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Bechamel, or White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the veal and ham, and simmer until it begins to catch at the bottom.

  3. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  4. Gradually add the broth or water, stirring until smooth.

  5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  6. Season with cloves, onion, peppercorns, mace, mushrooms, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

  7. Let the sauce reduce to 1 quart, skim off the fat, and strain through a fine cloth.

Finish the bechamel

  1. To make bechamel, add the cream to the strained sauce and stir until thickened.

  2. Strain again through a fine cloth for a smooth finish.

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.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  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

Veal
Provides savory meat flavor and body as it simmers into the sauce.
Butter
Carries the fat that starts the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Broth or water
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the meat flavors.
Cream
Adds richness and thickness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the broth or water, stirring until smooth. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour fully dispersed, preventing lumps that are hard to remove once the sauce heats.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, butter, flour, clove, onion, mushroom):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, butter, flour, clove, onion, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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