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Bechamel, or French White Sauce

A creamy sauce made by sautéing vegetables and meat, then thickening with flour and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Bechamel, or French White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a saucepan, lightly fry the onion, carrot, celery, peppercorns, and scraps of meat in the butter until softened.

  2. Add the flour and mix well, frying until golden brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the milk and stock until smooth.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste, ensuring the sauce is thick enough to cling to a spoon.

Strain

  1. Strain the sauce through a muslin cloth into a basin for future use.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the heat and fat that softens the vegetables and flavours the base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Milk
Adds liquid and a creamy body to the finished sauce.
White stock
Adds savoury flavour and liquid to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and stock. Whisk the milk and stock into the hot flour mixture gradually, off the heat. Adding liquid too fast lets the starch clump, so whisking in small amounts keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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