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Bechamel, or White Sauce

A creamy sauce made with veal, ham, butter, flour, broth, spices, herbs, cream, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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, or White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the veal and ham, and simmer until nearly catching at the bottom.

  3. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  4. Gradually add the broth or water, stirring until smooth and boiling.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 2 hours with the spices and herbs.

  6. Skim off the fat and strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. To make the sauce, add the cream to the strained sauce and stir until thickened.

  2. Add a few mushrooms for flavor and strain again.

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

Lean veal
Breaks down during simmering to give the stock body and savory depth.
Butter
Carries flavor and forms the fat base that the flour thickens.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Cream
Adds richness and body, thickening the strained sauce further.

The step that matters

Gradually add the broth or water. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour smooth, so the sauce does not form lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Capersbetter flavor fit
  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. 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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