Maggie is a cookbook author and actress who now lives in Poulsbo, Washington with her husband. They just built a gorgeous house there and Maggie has a state-of-the-art kitchen where she now creates her culinary masterpieces. We have posted several of Maggie’s recipes here – (Pizza, Saag Paneer, Fromage Fort, and Pear and Fig Bread). Maggie is also a cheese maker (click here) and she uses cheese in unusual ways in many of her recipes (for example, she uses cream cheese in her pizza sauce to make it thick and creamy (yum!)). We’re honored to present you with another of Maggie’s fabulous recipes here-
Thoughts and Tricks on Making the Mother of all Sauces – the Bechamel
I do like to cook-no doubt about it-well to be honest I like to cook NEW things and expand my culinary horizons. Like most humans – most of the time I get to fix what I call survival food, rather than something new and interesting. The pirate (Maggie’s well-fed husband) takes two meals to work every day (these techno-nerds get so involved in what they do they’d starve if food wasn’t under their noses), and of course comes home to a third-survival food indeed!
In that case, while I do not typically use pre-pared stuff – I don’t like the quality and chemicals much, I also don’t want to make life difficult for myself either. Americans love grilled food on the barbecue and also – ahem-we do like our fried everything BUT there comes a time where it is necessary to get out the SAUCE pan, and make a white sauce.
In musing over this piece, I found myself wondering why it is called BECHAMEL-and a swift Google revealed that: “Marquis Louis de Béchamel (1603-1703), a 17th century financier who held the honorary post of chief steward of King Louis XIV’s (1643-1715) household, is also said to have invented Béchamel Sauce when trying to come up with a new way of serving and eating dried cod.”
So, now we know (maybe-) where the name came from, and EVERYBODY tells us how to make it by starting with that well known lump of butter and flour called a ROUX. Been there, done that a zillion times. And I found myself wondering why I am supposed to make this LUMP and then spend many minutes trying to UN-LUMP it! Daft?! That’s a Brit word for pretty silly.
I’m often in a hurry-I am Mother of too many things (acres of lawn, weed removal, housekeeping, laundry, cooking, accounting, shopping, and until recently building a big house, blah blah blah–). So I look for shortcuts-I don’t want to open cans of soup (often- see my note at the end,*) to make meals but hmmmm, lump removal takes time. So I started experimenting with my microwave and bingo – I think this is a winner… and humbly offer it to you dear reader, to check it out!
Now before I give you a recipe, please let me point out that this list of ingredients is an infinitely variable formula for you to adjust according to your needs. I just recently fixed a LARGE batch of lasagna for a crowd and of course I put a béchamel on the top… for that I probably made twice the amount outlined below and I made it thick and it would appear SHINY!
Ingredients:
For your average batch of sauce assemble:
2 T cornstarch
2 T butter
12-16 oz of whole milk
1 tsp chicken soup base (or salt)**
Pinch of pepper
Pinch of Nutmeg (Optional)
2 oz cream cheese (Optional)
You can also substitute stock, half and half or cream for some of the milk for extra richness. The calorie alarm is going off !
** Note: I look for ways of improving flavor all the time-and I find that using soup base adds much more flavor notes that just salt. In big meaty casseroles I use SOY sauce often instead of salt for the same UMAMI reason! (And in my tomato sauce which is at this blog – in the pizza piece.) I have also used MISO paste in big sauces where trying to avoid the gluten in the soup base.
You will note that the first ingredient is not FLOUR but cornstarch: I am sure that I’ve used flour as an option but I do think the cornstarch works well to make an instant sauce like this, you can try both. NOTE: By using the cornstarch you render this sauce to be naturally gluten free-I was under a mandate to make this gluten free and have used cornstarch since.
Directions:
1) In a glass or microwavable vessel, begin by taking a small amount of the COLD milk and mix in the cornstarch thoroughly.
2) Next add the rest of the measured milk to the cornstarch mixture. Stir well.
3) Drop in your knob of butter and the soup base or salt, and pepper.
4) Put it in the microwave and cook for about 2 minutes on medium power-(I have 10 options for power and used 7.) # See below.
5) Take it out and stir-the butter will have melted.
6) Now put it back into the microwave and cook for about 1 and a half more minutes on the same power. Stir again to integrate everything.
7) Your sauce will have started to thicken and coat the back of your spoon; yes, this is a blurry photo-mea culpa-not enough hands!
8) Now this is the odd part … and the bit that makes it GREAT!
9) Add a two oz piece of cream cheese and a tiny pinch 1/8 to ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg. You probably will omit this if you have specific needs for your sauce that don’t call for nutmeg- see my list of uses below. I do encourage you to buy and use fresh nutmeg, the flavor is so much better when grating it fresh- and it’s very easy to grate with a small microplane grater which is also the perfect tool for citrus peel!
10) Put the sauce back into the microwave and cook for another 1 ½ minutes.
11) STIR: Your sauce will be thick and shiny and ready for use EXCEPT for the cream cheese which will be minor-league lumpy. A word about cooking with cream cheese is necessary here-I put cream cheese in lots of things (tomato sauce YES!) but it is stubbornly un-melty….it has some kind of gum in it that I think would hold up ceilings? USUALLY, when I’m going to add it to other foods, I melt it and stir it first in the microwave. In this instance, if you put it in cold as described here, just take out your whisk and beat until the sauce is smooth.
Now I can just here you saying—“wait a minute- I’m making this sauce and I was promised no lumps! Well, this is where you get to take your lumps—the cream cheese bumpiness is like a traffic ticket—a minor infraction, and soon dealt with. ROUX lumps are like repeat offenders with a long criminal record; I have had to put sauces through a sieve in the past! Not so with this method.
You can see how much the sauce is improved in texture by adding the cream cheese and cooking it down a little further. This is an optional step but a good one!
At this point if you discover that you don’t have enough sauce you can always go back to your cornstarch and milk, add a bit more of each, mix them well, add the slurry to your sauce and cook some more. If it’s too thick for today’s purpose, add extra milk or liquid.
So now you have your base sauce and it’s ready to use in so many ways. These are ones that come to mind for me:
- Making sure your sauce is thick, use as a topping for pizza crust with seafood or a baked potato pizza with soft potato slices, bacon and green onions.
- Add cheese, and pour it over a grilled ham and cheese for Croque M’sieu (French diner food!)
- Add even more cheese and mustard and Worcestershire sauce and put it over cooked macaroni; are you using those boxes! Tsk tsk.
- Use some clam juice in place of some of the milk (make a bigger version) and add potatoes, celery and clams, plus a slug of dry vermouth for chowder.
- Make a thick version and fold in egg whites for a soufflé base
- Add dried onion soup mix (see I do it sometimes) and layer with sliced potatoes for scalloped spuds
- Make a small version adding white wine and tarragon and put it over a piece of fish
- Add chicken, mushrooms and ham for a pot pie-(that is exactly what I did with my batch this week!)
- Add cheese and put it over cauliflower
- If you make a small batch you can add Hollandaise sauce mix for a quick version in a hurry.
No wonder the mighty BECHAMEL is the Mother of all sauces!
# Your microwave may be a bit less powerful than mine or more so; you will soon figure out which and compensate accordingly!
* Speaking of cans of soup and being in a hurry, I just recently made a smashing Indian curry with a can of tomato soup and some Indian spices. It was NUMMY!
So there you have it -bye bye lumpy roux!
Thanks for reading,
Maggie P…
For printing:
Bechamel Sauce By Maggie Parkinson
Ingredients:
For your average batch of sauce assemble:
2 T cornstarch
2 T butter
12-16 oz of whole milk
1 tsp chicken soup base (or salt)**
Pinch of pepper
Pinch of Nutmeg (Optional)
2 oz cream cheese (Optional)
You can also substitute stock, half and half or cream for some of the milk for extra richness. The calorie alarm is going off !
** Note: I look for ways of improving flavor all the time-and I find that using soup base adds much more flavor notes that just salt. In big meaty casseroles I use SOY sauce often instead of salt for the same UMAMI reason! (And in my tomato sauce which is here on cheesemaking.com in the pizza piece.) I have also used MISO paste in big sauces where trying to avoid the gluten in the soup base.
You will note that the first ingredient is not FLOUR but cornstarch: I am sure that I’ve used flour as an option but I do think the cornstarch works well to make an instant sauce like this, you can try both. NOTE: By using the cornstarch you render this sauce to be naturally gluten free-I was under a mandate to make this gluten free and have used cornstarch since.
Directions:
1) In a glass or microwavable vessel, begin by taking a small amount of the COLD milk and mix in the cornstarch thoroughly.
2) Next add the rest of the measured milk to the cornstarch mixture. Stir well.
3) Drop in your knob of butter and the soup base or salt, and pepper.
4) Put it in the microwave and cook for about 2 minutes on medium power-(I have 10 options for power and used 7.) # See below.
5) Take it out and stir-the butter will have melted.
6) Now put it back into the microwave and cook for about 1 and a half more minutes on the same power. Stir again to integrate everything.
7) Your sauce will have started to thicken and coat the back of your spoon; yes, this is a blurry photo-mea culpa-not enough hands!
8) Now this is the odd part … and the bit that makes it GREAT!
9) Add a two oz piece of cream cheese and a tiny pinch 1/8 to ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg. You probably will omit this if you have specific needs for your sauce that don’t call for nutmeg- see my list of uses below. I do encourage you to buy and use fresh nutmeg, the flavor is so much better when grating it fresh- and it’s very easy to grate with a small microplane grater which is also the perfect tool for citrus peel!
10) Put the sauce back into the microwave and cook for another 1 ½ minutes.
11) STIR: Your sauce will be thick and shiny and ready for use EXCEPT for the cream cheese which will be minor-league lumpy. A word about cooking with cream cheese is necessary here-I put cream cheese in lots of things (tomato sauce YES!) but it is stubbornly un-melty….it has some kind of gum in it that I think would hold up ceilings? USUALLY, when I’m going to add it to other foods, I melt it and stir it first in the microwave. In this instance, if you put it in cold as described here, just take out your whisk and beat until the sauce is smooth.
Now I can just here you saying—“wait a minute- I’m making this sauce and I was promised no lumps! Well, this is where you get to take your lumps—the cream cheese bumpiness is like a traffic ticket—a minor infraction, and soon dealt with. ROUX lumps are like repeat offenders with a long criminal record; I have had to put sauces through a sieve in the past! Not so with this method.
You can see how much the sauce is improved in texture by adding the cream cheese and cooking it down a little further. This is an optional step but a good one!
At this point if you discover that you don’t have enough sauce you can always go back to your cornstarch and milk, add a bit more of each, mix them well, add the slurry to your sauce and cook some more. If it’s too thick for today’s purpose, add extra milk or liquid.
So now you have your base sauce and it’s ready to use in so many ways. These are ones that come to mind for me:
- Making sure your sauce is thick, use as a topping for pizza crust with seafood or a baked potato pizza with soft potato slices, bacon and green onions.
- Add cheese, and pour it over a grilled ham and cheese for Croque M’sieu (French diner food!)
- Add even more cheese and mustard and Worcestershire sauce and put it over cooked macaroni; are you using those boxes! Tsk tsk.
- Use some clam juice in place of some of the milk (make a bigger version) and add potatoes, celery and clams, plus a slug of dry vermouth for chowder.
- Make a thick version and fold in egg whites for a soufflé base
- Add dried onion soup mix (see I do it sometimes) and layer with sliced potatoes for scalloped spuds
- Make a small version adding white wine and tarragon and put it over a piece of fish
- Add chicken, mushrooms and ham for a pot pie-(that is exactly what I did with my batch this week!)
- Add cheese and put it over cauliflower
- If you make a small batch you can add Hollandaise sauce mix for a quick version in a hurry.
No wonder the mighty BECHAMEL is the Mother of all sauces!
# Your microwave may be a bit less powerful than mine or more so; you will soon figure out which and compensate accordingly!
* Speaking of cans of soup and being in a hurry, I just recently made a smashing Indian curry with a can of tomato soup and some Indian spices. It was NUMMY!
