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Béchamel Maigre

A light white sauce made with butter, onions, mushrooms, flour, milk, salt, cayenne, and optional egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Béchamel Maigre

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and mushroom buttons, and cook slowly for 30 minutes until the butter is nearly evaporated.

  3. Stir in the flour until well combined.

  4. Gradually pour in the milk, stirring continuously to keep the sauce smooth.

  5. Gently boil the sauce for 30 minutes, adding salt and cayenne to taste.

  6. If the sauce is not thick enough, strain and reduce it further.

  7. For a richer sauce, stir in the yolks of two fresh eggs while the sauce is hot.

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

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

  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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the onions and mushrooms and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.
Egg yolks
Add richness and thickening when stirred into the hot sauce.

The step that matters

Gently boil the sauce. Flour starch needs to be cooked at a gentle boil to swell fully and lose its raw taste. Stirring keeps the milk from scorching on the pan base and forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, meat, mushroom, flour, milk, pepper, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, mushroom, flour, milk, pepper, egg. 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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