No. 412

Bechamel with Mushroom Essence

Bechamel a l'Essence de Champignons

Put a quarter of a pound of butter into a saucepan, add to it two ounces of onions cut in three-sixteenth inch squares, a quarter of a pound of lean veal cut in three-eighth inch squares, two ounces of carrots cut in one-quarter inch squares and two ounces of unsmoked ham cut in one-quarter inch squares, also a bunch of parsley garnished with two bay leaves and as much thyme, and let these fry on a moderate fire; drain off the butter, and add four quarts of veloute (No. 415), seasoning with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg, then cook the whole for one hour, afterward straining it through a tammy, and reduce it with one quart of essence of mushrooms (No. 392). Strain it again through the tammy and just when ready to use, incorporate into it half a pound of fine, fresh butter.

← No. 411 Lean Bechamel with Cream Stocks, Essences & Auxiliaries No. 413 Half-Glaze Sauce, Clear and Thickened →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a professional-scale derivative sauce from Ranhofer's Delmonico kitchen: it assumes you already have velouté and mushroom essence on hand. Scaling down by a factor of eight gives a workable home quantity.

ScaleFour quarts of velouté plus a quart of mushroom essence yields something on the order of a gallon of finished sauce. Divide everything by eight for a home batch: 2 cups velouté, 1/2 cup mushroom essence, 1 tbsp butter for the fry, 1 oz butter to finish.
The two cross-referencesNo. 415 velouté is, in the usual professional form, a white veal or poultry stock thickened with a pale roux; No. 392 essence of mushrooms is a hard-reduced mushroom infusion. Neither can be replaced by canned broth or mushroom liquid from a jar without losing the point of the sauce.
"Moderate fire" for the aromaticsThis is a sweat, not a browning. Bechamel in Ranhofer's sense is a white sauce, so keep the onion, carrot, veal and ham pale — any real color turns the finished sauce grey-tan.
Unsmoked hamFresh or lightly cured ham, not the smoked supermarket kind. Unsmoked gammon, prosciutto trim without the smoke, or plain fresh pork with a pinch of salt all serve; smoked ham will dominate the mushroom.
Draining the butterThe quarter pound of butter is a cooking medium and is poured off before the velouté goes in. Skipping this step leaves the sauce greasy and prevents the final butter from emulsifying cleanly.
TammyA tammy is a loose worsted cloth through which the sauce was wrung by two cooks twisting a stick at either end. A fine chinois lined with rinsed muslin, pressed with a ladle, does the same work.
Reducing with the essenceAdd the mushroom essence and reduce until the sauce coats a spoon and tastes concentrated; the recipe gives no target volume. Stir the bottom; a velouté this thick scorches quietly.
Finishing butterThe half pound of fresh butter goes in 'just when ready to use'; standard practice is off the heat, in pieces, swirled rather than boiled. Once mounted the sauce will not stand reheating above a bare simmer without breaking.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) codifies the sauce system he ran at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows how that system worked: a mother sauce (velouté), a separate concentrated flavoring (mushroom essence), and a third recipe that marries them for the day's service. The name bechamel is traditionally traced to Louis de Béchameil, a steward in the household of Louis XIV, though the sauce itself almost certainly predates any connection to him. Note that Ranhofer's bechamel here is built on veal velouté rather than milk, a reminder that the milk-and-roux definition familiar today was not the only one in use.