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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from veal stock, cream, egg yolks, butter, and flour.

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

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan until bubbling.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix until smooth, ensuring it does not brown.

  3. Gradually add the veal stock and cream, stirring until the mixture boils.

  4. Remove from heat and add salt, pepper, and the beaten egg yolks.

  5. Let it stand in a warm place for 2 minutes, but do not let it boil after adding the eggs.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid into a smooth, stable sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it gently as they warm.
Butter
Carries fat and flavour and forms the base for the flour roux.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
Veal stock
Supplies the savoury liquid that forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Do not let it boil after adding the eggs. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle when overheated, which leaves the sauce grainy. Once the yolks are in, the sauce should stay warm but not boil.

“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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