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Bechamel Sauce
Put into a saucepan half of an onion, three tablespoonfuls of butter that has been worked with three tablespoonfuls of flour, a large slice of carrot. a bunch of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf, tied together, a small piece of mace, a small quantity each of salt and grated nutmeg, and one pint of white stock. When boiling place the saucepan at the side of the fire, and let the sauce simmer for thirty minutes, stirring it often. When cooked, mix with the sauce one half pint of cream, boil it up again, then strain it through a fine hair-sieve, and serve. (2.) Put two tablespoonfuls each of butter and flour into a saucepan, and stir them over the fire until well mixed; then pour in by degrees one pint of white stock, and continue stirring over the fire until boiling. Add eight or nine peeled mushrooms, put the lid half on the saucepan, and let the sauce simmer for twenty minutes, skimming off the butter as it rises. Strain the sauce through a fine hair-sieve, put it into another saucepan, mix in one-half pint of cream and the juice of half a lemon, stir it over the fire, and allow it to boil for five or six minutes, then pour the sauce into a basin, and continue stirring until it is cold. Mix some aspic jelly with the sauce if used for making a chaudfroid.
Two versions of the same sauce: the first a straightforward simmered velouté-béchamel enriched with cream, the second a cold-setting version built for chaudfroid work. Both assume a stockpot already going and a stove with hot and cool zones.
- The hinge: keep the heat low and stirBoth versions carry enough flour and dairy to scorch on the bottom before you notice, and a scorched béchamel cannot be rescued. "Place the saucepan at the side of the fire" means move it off direct heat to a bare simmer, the equivalent of low on a modern burner or a heat diffuser.
- Two different thickening methodsVersion 1 uses butter and flour "worked" together raw, dropped into the liquid — beurre manié, which cooks out as the sauce simmers its thirty minutes. Version 2 makes a true white roux first. Neither should take colour; if the roux browns you have moved toward espagnole.
- White stockAn unroasted veal or chicken stock, pale and lightly seasoned. A good low-sodium chicken stock works; avoid anything dark or heavily reduced, and salt at the end, since a pint reducing over thirty minutes concentrates whatever was already there.
- Mace and nutmegMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, warmer and less sweet than the nut itself. "A small piece" means a single blade; whole blades still sell in spice shops, and half a teaspoon of ground mace substitutes at a pinch.
- Hair sieveA fine sieve of woven horsehair, the period's finest strainer. A chinois or a fine-mesh sieve lined with a doubled square of muslin gives the same result — the point is to catch the aromatics and any flour lumps.
- The creamUse heavy cream, not half-and-half; the lower-fat products can break when boiled hard. In version 2 the lemon juice goes in with the cream over heat, which is a real curdling risk — add it off the boil, stir it through, and bring it back gently.
- Mushrooms"Peeled" mushrooms means the old practice of stripping the cap skin from large field mushrooms. Cultivated white or cremini need only a wipe; eight or nine medium ones will do, and they are strained out, so they are there for flavour alone.
- Chaudfroid and aspicThe second sauce is cooled with constant stirring so it stays smooth and skins over evenly — it is meant to be spooned over cold poached chicken or fish and left to set. The aspic gives it the body to cling. If you are serving the sauce hot, stop before the cooling step.
- YieldAbout three cups from either version, enough to sauce a dish for six to eight. Neither recipe says so.