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Bechamel Sauce

A creamy sauce made from butter, flour, veal stock, cream, carrot, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and cook thoroughly without browning.

  3. Gradually mix in the hot veal stock and boiling cream.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Add the carrot and parsley to the veal stock while boiling.

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

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Veal stock
Provides the savoury liquid body and meaty flavour of the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the flour without browning. Flour must be cooked in the fat long enough to lose its raw starchy taste, but browning changes its colour and flavour and weakens the sauce's pale, delicate character. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the roux pale while it cooks through.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, veal, cream, pepper, carrot, parsley):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, veal, cream, pepper, carrot, parsley. 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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