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Bechamel, By English Cooks Commonly Called White Sauce

A stew of veal and ham in a white sauce seasoned with cloves, onion, peppercorns, mace, mushrooms, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, By English Cooks Commonly Called White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  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 to keep it smooth.

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

  6. Season with cloves, onion, peppercorns, mace, mushrooms, and the herb fagot.

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
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender during the long gentle simmer.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the meat and ham and gives the stew richness.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the broth as it simmers with the veal.

The step that matters

Gradually add the broth or water, stirring to keep it smooth. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  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.

“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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