Having the ability to quickly make a sauce is so valuable. There are a few base sauces that you should have in your knowledge bank. As you all know, I am a nut about gravy. Gravy, in my view, is a version of a base sauce called Veloute, but I digress. By adding cheese to this Bechamel, you basically have turned it into a Mornay sauce, but enough of the French variations. Here is my base Bechamel sauce that makes about 3 1/2 cups:
Rule of Thumb: 2 TBSP of Flour per cup of Liquid is a Thick Sauce. For a thinner sauce, do a 1:1 or 1.5:1 ratio.
1) First you need to make a roux which is your thickener. Equal parts of butter to flour, so in this case 4 TBSP of butter to 4 TBSP of flour. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low/medium heat. Now, I like to sprinkle the flour in to incorporate evenly, whisking while you are doing this. Some methods advocate the dump all at once but this method avoids dealing with clumps. I cook this for about 5 minutes to get the flour taste out of the roux and add a bit of nuttiness. Don’t let it brown.
2) 3 C. room temperature whole milk. Now, slowly dribble in 1 C. of the milk into the roux and whisk while you are doing this. Slowly add the other 2 C. of the milk and whisk the whole time. Keep the heat to a low simmer, you don’t want to boil and scald this. Cook for another 5-10 minutes and it should thicken up pretty well. If it is too thick, add more milk. Now bechamel is quite bland so aggressively season it with salt, pepper and other spices as you see fit and cater to how you plan to use.
3) You can keep bechamel for about 3 days in the fridge.
Nosh Options: Change the milk to cream or change the whole milk to skim. Use Kerry Gold Irish butter instead of US domestic versions to make it a little richer.
If you want to make this a cheese sauce, take the pot of the heat and add about 1/4 C. of cheese. Adjust accordingly. I like using Gruyere or an aged Cheddar for my Mornay sauces.
Eat.Drink.Savor.
