Skip to main content
Main

Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from sautéed vegetables, milk or stock, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

Prepare

  1. Finely slice the onion, carrot, and celery.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil them in ½ pint of milk or stock with the bouquet of herbs, pepper, and salt for 45 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Thicken the sauce with 2 ounces of flour and 1 ounce of butter.

  4. Cook the sauce for 10 minutes.

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
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Combines with the flour to form a roux that helps thicken the sauce and adds richness.
Milk or stock
Forms the liquid base that the vegetables are simmered in and the sauce is built on.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked with the butter and liquid long enough for its starch to swell and lose its raw taste. Adding it to a hot liquid without proper mixing can form lumps, so it should be whisked smooth.

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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes