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Sauce

Bechamel, or White Sauce

A white sauce made by simmering veal and ham with spices, then thickening with flour and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Bechamel, or White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine veal, ham, peppercorns, shallot, cloves, mace, bay leaf, parsley, and veal broth or water.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it simmer until strong and well-flavored.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken the broth with flour rubbed smooth in cold water.

  2. Bring it back to a boil.

  3. Slowly mix in the cream.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a smooth, coating sauce when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Veal
Builds the savory, meaty depth of flavor in the stock.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky savoriness to the stock.

The step that matters

Slowly mix in the cream. Cream added to a hot, thickened liquid can curdle or separate if poured in quickly or allowed to boil hard. Adding it slowly, with the sauce kept hot but not boiling, helps it blend smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, shallot, clove, parsley, flour, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, shallot, clove, parsley, flour, cream. 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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