No. 409

Bechamel Sauce

Sauce Bechamel.

This is made by preparing a roux of butter and flour, and letting it cook for a few minutes while stirring, not allowing it to color in the slightest; remove it to a slower fire and leave it to continue cooking for a quarter of an hour, then dilute it gradually with half boiled milk, and half veal blond (No. 423). Stir the liquid on the fire until it boils, then mingle in with it a mirepoix of roots and onions (No. 419), fried separately in butter, some mushroom peelings and a bunch of parsley; set it on a slower fire and let cook for twenty-five minutes without ceasing to stir so as to avoid its adhering to the bottom; it must be rather more consistent than light. Strain it through a fine sieve then through a tammy into a vessel, and allow it to cool off while continuing to stir; set it aside for further use.

← No. 408 Allemande Sauce with Mushroom Essence Stocks, Essences & Auxiliaries No. 410 Chicken Bechamel →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives proportions for none of this, which is normal for a nineteenth-century professional kitchen where the roux and the stock were standing preparations. A few numbers and substitutions make it workable.

ProportionsFor roughly a quart of finished sauce, use 4 oz butter and 4 oz flour, diluted with 1 pint milk and 1 pint veal blond. Ranhofer wants it "rather more consistent than light" — thick enough to coat a spoon heavily, since it was a base for other sauces rather than a finished one.
Veal blondNo. 423 is Ranhofer's pale veal stock, kept light in color rather than browned. An unsalted light veal stock is the closest modern equivalent; a good unsalted chicken stock will do, though the sauce will taste less neutral.
The roux must stay whiteThis is the hinge: Ranhofer says "not allowing it to color in the slightest." Cook it over low heat, stirring, and pull it the moment it smells faintly of biscuit.
Fifteen minutes of rouxThe long slow cooking before dilution is not padding — it cooks out raw starch so the sauce does not taste floury after only twenty-five minutes of simmering. Keep the pan on the gentlest heat you have.
MirepoixNo. 419 is Ranhofer's mirepoix; here he calls for one of roots and onions, sweated in butter. Fry it separately as directed and add it to the boiled sauce; frying it in the same pan would color the roux.
Mushroom peelingsTrimmings from cleaning mushrooms, saved through the day's prep. A handful of ordinary sliced button mushrooms gives the same effect, though slightly sweeter.
TammyA tammy is a tightly woven worsted cloth through which the sauce was forced, often twisted between two people. A fine chinois followed by a double layer of dampened cheesecloth achieves the same clarity.
CoolingStirring while it cools prevents a skin and stops the bottom from scorching on residual pan heat. Once cool, refrigerate; treat it as a fresh dairy preparation and use within three or four days.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working system set down in print — which is why a sauce most home cooks think of as milk, butter and flour arrives here fortified with veal stock, mirepoix and mushroom trimmings. The name is traditionally traced to Louis de Béchameil, a financier and steward in the household of Louis XIV, though the attribution is a courtier's compliment rather than a claim of invention; a flour-thickened white sauce was already in French practice. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries béchamel was routinely built on veal, and the all-milk version familiar today is largely a twentieth-century simplification. Note that Ranhofer places it among the stocks and auxiliaries, not the sauces proper: this is a component to be drawn from, the parent of the chicken béchamel that follows it and of dozens of dishes further on in the book.