2. BÉCHAMEL SAUCE
Béchamel sauce is the base or mother of all
cream sauces. It can be used to make other cream
sauces such as Alfredo (a parmesan cream sauce)
or Carbonara (a cream sauce with bacon and
egg).
3. MATERIALS
Before beginning the cooking One sauce pot
procedure you must gather all of One whisk
the materials needed to make One knife (size doesn’t matter)
the sauce.
Four cups of milk One cutting board
Three cups of all purpose flour One tasting spoon (wash after
each tasting)
1/5th of an onion One scooping spoon
One stick of butter Two measuring cups
One bay leaf Three teaspoons
One spice clove A few small bowls or cups (to
One teaspoon of salt make it easier o keep all four
One teaspoon of pepper cups of milk together, or to keep
One teaspoon of nutmeg the salt, pepper, and nutmeg from
spilling)
4. PROCEDURE: STEP ONE
Place the sauce pot on a stove burner, add the one
stick of butter into it and turn it on. For quick
preparation turn the stove on maximum high and
use your whisk to stir so the butter melts
quickly, just keep your eye on the butter to make
sure it doesn’t burn. One the butter has melted
turn the burner on the lowest setting.
5. PROCEDURE: STEP TWO
Keeping your burner at low gradually add your flour
into the sauce pot with the melted butter. Use your
whisk to stir in the flour for each time you add more.
This way you can determine if you will need all three
cups of flour or if the mixture is thick enough with
out it. For quicker preparation, add enough flour so
there is more of it than there is butter. This way when
you are stir all of the sauce ingredients together, the
sauce will thicken quicker. This butter and flour
mixture is called a roux.
6. PROCEDURE: STEP THREE
On your cutting board, place the bay leaf onto
your onion piece and stick the spice clove
through your bay leaf into the onion piece. Then
place it into the sauce pot with the roux (butter
and flour mixture) and stir it so that the roux
coats the onion with the bay leaf and spice clove.
The burner still should be on low.
7. PROCEDURE: STEP FOUR
Turn your burner to a high setting and gradually
add your milk into the sauce pot. There should be
enough milk in the pot that you can’t see the
onion piece with the bay leaf and spice clove on it
while the sauce isn’t being stirred. You may not
need all four cups of the milk but it’s good to
have extra just in case. Constantly be stirring the
mixture until it is thick enough to coat a tasting
spoon.
8. PROCEDURE: FINAL STEP
Turn the burner back onto low and add you
teaspoon of salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the sauce.
Taste the sauce to make sure the there is enough
of each seasoning for the sauce, if not feel free to
add more. You are also free to remove the piece
of onion, bay leaf, and spice clove from the sauce
using your scooping spoon.
9. SERVINGS AND BEYOND
This is probably enough sauce for a box of
pasta, which contains eight servings. So feel free
to reduce the recipe to the amount you need
based on the number of servings you need to
make. Usually béchamel sauce is not served just
as it is with pasta, an easy sauce to make from it
is Alfredo. To make it add a cup or two of
parmesan cheese when you adding the milk to the
sauce pot.
