Bechamel sauce (White sauce)

    This creamy, delicious sauce is one of the most common sauces used in the European cooking. With this simple sauce and some Parmigiano you can give a great taste to boiled vegetables such as cauliflower or fennel, and, of course, this is one of the basic ingredients for your lasagna!

Ingredients:

500 ml/2.11cups  milk

50 gr./1.76 oz butter

50 gr/ 1.76 oz plain flour

Salt 

Nutmeg (depending on the recipe - great when serving on boiled vegetables)

How to:

1)     Heat milk until just about to boil.

2)     In an other medium saucepan with a heavy bottom heat and melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until smooth (roux). Over the medium heat, cook it until light golden - about 5 min. -, mixing now and then. (You will smell it – something like fresh baked bread). This means that the flour is cooked. Careful not to burn it!

3)     Remove the saucepan from the fire and add one dipper of milk. This is the most difficult part of the recipe: the roux will become hard and tend to form lumps: mix very quickly and with great energy with the whisk and add more milk only after the previous one is perfectly incorporated.

4)     Add an other dipper of milk and incorporate it as well. - Can you see how fast the whisk moves?

5)     When all the milk is incorporated, put the saucepan back over a medium heat and bring it to the boil for 30” mixing now and then.

6)     Season with salt.

Tip: 1) When finished, if you notice that the lumps did not dissolve completely, you can work the sauce with an immersion blender. With practise this will not happen anymore.

Tip: 2) If you do not respect the exact proportions between the ingredients the sauce will have a different thickness: less flour or more milk will result in a more liquid bechamel,  good for your vegetable but which will not be hard enough for your lasagna.



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