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Bechamel Sauce

A sauce made from butter, flour, milk or stock, and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the liquid

  1. In a pot, combine the onion, carrot, celery, milk or stock, bouquet of herbs, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil for 45 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and add the flour to thicken the sauce.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring continuously.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Starch that thickens the sauce once cooked with the melted butter and liquid.
Butter
Fat that coats the flour and carries flavour into the sauce.
Milk or stock
Liquid that forms the body of the sauce and takes on the vegetable flavour.
Onion
Aromatic base that adds savoury depth to the infused liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking the butter and flour for 10 minutes while stirring continuously. Stirring keeps the flour evenly mixed so lumps and scorched spots do not form. Cooking the flour long enough swells its starch so the sauce thickens smoothly and loses its raw floury taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, pepper, milk, flour, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, pepper, milk, flour, butter. 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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