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Sauce

Bechamel Sauce

A creamy white sauce made with butter, flour, stock, cream, and egg yolk, seasoned with salt and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bechamel Sauce

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bechamel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir well to combine.

  3. Gradually pour in the white stock and thin cream, stirring continuously.

  4. Cook until the sauce thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the raw egg yolk, seasoning with salt and white pepper.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Butter
Carries the flour and adds rich flavour as the base of the sauce.
Flour
Its starch thickens the liquid and gives the sauce body.
White stock
Supplies the savoury liquid that forms the body of the sauce.
Thin cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce with extra richness, colour and silkiness.

The step that matters

Pour in the liquid gradually while stirring. Flour starch clumps when it meets liquid all at once. Adding the stock and cream slowly while stirring keeps the mixture smooth as the starch swells and thickens it.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, egg, 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.

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