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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy white sauce made with onion, butter, flour, carrot, herbs, stock, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the onion, butter mixed with flour, carrot, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, mace, salt, nutmeg, and white stock.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. After cooking, mix in the cream and bring to a boil again.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and serve.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, enriching the sauce's flavour and texture.
Flour
Starch that thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
White stock
Main liquid that forms the body of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering with frequent stirring. Flour thickens only as its starch swells in the hot liquid, and stirring prevents it from settling and scorching on the base of the pan. Simmering gently keeps the sauce smooth and lets the aromatics infuse.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, carrot, parsley, thyme, nutmeg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, carrot, parsley, thyme, nutmeg. 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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