It seems that it was a recipe imported into France by Caterina de Medici and then developed by the French in every possible variant. In Italy, it is used mostly for baked pasta. For Sunday lunch, Romans often eat lasagna or cannelloni, and that’s why it is important to know how to make bechamel sauce well.
Bechamel sauce
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Ingredients for 1 liter or 1 US quart of bechamel
- Difficulty: Easy recipe
- Ingredients
- 1 liter or 1 US quart oz of milk
- 70 gr or 3 oz of butter
- 70 gr or 3 oz of flour
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Nutmeg to taste
- Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and continue cooking over a moderate flame with a whisk until it comes off the walls.
- Allow the roux to cool slightly and then add the slightly warm milk to the mixture.
- Cook until boiling and then cover the mixture and continue cooking in a bain-marie with a very sweet fire for about ten minutes. The bain-marie is a cooking process in a container not in direct contact with the fire, but immersed in water kept at the desired temperature, then in this case inside a larger pan filled with water.
- Season with salt and pepper and nutmeg.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- Before adding the milk, the roux must cool. If you add the milk when the roux is still hot, the bechamel will become sticky.
- Add the warm milk to the bechamel roux. This procedure will ensure that the béchamel is smooth and velvety. In the remote case where there are lumps, filter the béchamel through a sieve.
- The passage in a bain-marie serves to polymerize the starches and make the béchamel more digestible. Otherwise, you can bake the roux in a microwave oven for four minutes at maximum power, turning it with a whisk every minute.
