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To Make Bechamel, or White Sauce

A white sauce made by simmering veal and ham with aromatics, then thickening broth with flour and finishing with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Make Bechamel, or White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine veal, ham, peppercorns, shallot, cloves, mace, bay leaf, parsley, and veal broth or water in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer until strong and well-flavored.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the broth by adding flour rubbed smooth in cold water.

  2. Bring the broth to a boil again.

  3. Slowly mix in the cream.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, coating sauce as its starch gelatinizes when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished sauce.
Veal
Contributes savory meaty flavor and body to the broth during simmering.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky depth of flavor to the simmered broth.

The step that matters

Slowly mix in the cream. Cream added to a very hot liquid can curdle or separate if poured in quickly. Adding it gradually while stirring, and keeping the broth below a hard boil, helps it blend smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, shallot, clove, parsley, flour, cream):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, shallot, clove, parsley, flour, cream. 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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