Skip to main content
Main

Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from a veal and fowl stock thickened with arrowroot and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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 stock

  1. Prepare white stock by boiling the fowl, veal, ham, carrots, onions, mace, peppercorns, salt, and butter in 4 to 5 quarts of water.

  2. Cut the fowl and veal, then simmer them with the ham in a small amount of water until juices are extracted.

  3. Add the remaining water to the pot and let it simmer for 4 to 5 hours.

  4. Skim and strain the liquid until clear for the bechamel.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the arrowroot with the cream and simmer in a clean pan for 4 to 5 minutes.

  2. Heat 1 pint of the stock and pour it into the cream mixture.

  3. Simmer slowly for 10 minutes or until thickened; add more stock if too thick.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body, giving the sauce its smooth, silky texture.
Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce its body without making it cloudy.
Veal knuckles
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the stock, adding body to the sauce.
Fowl
Adds deep poultry flavor and gelatin to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer the cream and arrowroot gently. Arrowroot thickens when heated but can break down or turn thin and sticky if boiled hard or held too long. Gentle, steady simmering keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened, and adding stock gradually lets you control its consistency.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, mace, butter, cream. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesArrowroot GruelArrowroot Gruel37 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes