Béchamel Sauce (White Sauce)

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Butter and flour cooked into a roux, then milk added little by little with constant stirring, seasoned with salt and nutmeg. Ten minutes, and the stirring is the whole technique.

Prep Time2

Cook Time8

Total Time10

Course: Sauces

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: béchamel sauce

Servings: cups (600 ml)

Calories: 499kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

40 g butter about 3 tablespoons
40 g wheat flour the same weight as the butter
600 ml milk
Salt to taste
A pinch of nutmeg

Instructions

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. When it has melted, add the wheat flour and stir until the two come together into what is called a roux.
Let it cook for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly, and take care that it does not burn.
Once the flour and butter are well mixed, add the milk a little at a time while stirring, using circular movements.
When all the milk is in, add a little salt and the pinch of nutmeg and carry on cooking for another 5 to 7 minutes, stirring now and then.
Take it off the heat and use it while it is hot.

Notes

Add the milk in stages, not all at once, and stir the whole time. Every splash has to be absorbed into the roux before the next one goes in, and this is the only point where lumps can form. If they do form anyway, pass the sauce through a strainer, which is what the recipe's note means when it says to sift it. Cook the flour in the butter for the full two minutes before any milk arrives. Raw flour has a taste that no amount of nutmeg covers, and two minutes gets rid of it without colouring the roux. Forty grams each of butter and flour for 600 ml of milk gives a béchamel that coats without being stiff, which is what most dishes want. For the thick kind that holds its shape on a lasagne, use sixty of each and keep the milk the same. The recipe used to call for a single tablespoon of each, which is around eight grams of flour, and it simply does not thicken 600 ml of anything. Judge it by the spoon rather than the clock: drawn out of the sauce, the back of a spoon should hold a coating you can draw a line through. It also thickens as it cools. Half the milk can be replaced with chicken stock, which the recipe's own note suggests, and sautéing half an onion and a clove of garlic in the butter before the flour goes in is the other variation it offers.

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