Sauce Bechamel

Name: Sauce Bechamel
Yield: Serve six people
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 1 small onion, peeled and stuck with 2 cloves; 50 g butter; ¼ stick celery, chopped; 1 sprig thyme; 6 peppercorns; 500 ml milk; 100 g butter; 100 g plain flour; 50 ml cognac; 1 bay leaf; 75 ml cream

Preparation info

Serve
six
people

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Tony Bilson's Recipe Book

By Tony Bilson

Published 1987

About

Many cooks refer to this sauce by the unnattractive nickname ‘glue’, and while I do use it to cohere various preparations, the sauce has many other applications in home cooking.

Ingredients

500 ml milk
1 small onion, peeled and stuck with 2 cloves

Oceania
Europe
Australia
France
Sauce
Vegetarian
Mediterranean

Method

Add the vegetables, herbs and seasonings to the milk and gently bring to the boil, taking care not to burn the milk on the bottom of the pot. Skim the milk of any froth and simmer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile make the roux by melting the butter in a small pot over a low flame, adding the flour and stirring it into the butter with a wooden spoon. Continue to cook the roux for a further five