This year, I decided to finally master the 5 French Mother Sauces. Being French Canadian myself, means I at least know how to make the famous Béchamel. My mom made it all my life, but she didn't like the nutmeg and never added it. I myself love just a little hint of it.
Béchamel is extremely simple to make and requires only five ingredients, but it does require patience. As soon as you try speeding up is when you will run into clumps. So take your time. With practice, you will learn how thick or thin to serve it. For instance, if you were to serve it on fish, you would want it a little thicker, but if you are to serve it on pasta, you will want it much thinner as the starch will dramatically make it ticker.
Time is also important. The longer you wait to serve it, the thicker it will get so take that into consideration.
Ingredients:
-5 Tbsp room temperature non salted butter (if using salted butter, add just 1 tsp below)
-5 Tbsp non bleached white flour
-3 to 4 Cups of 3.25 % room temperature milk
-2 tsp sea salt
-1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Method:
Melt your butter in a saucepan under low heat.
Add the flour slowly while constantly mixing with a whisk. This butter and flour combination is called a Roux and is the start to many sauces. When you make a Béchamel, you want to keep it "blond" and not cook it too much. The longer you cook, the more brown it gets and the taste also become more pronounced
Start adding the milk extremely slowly while whisking constantly. Start with 3 cups only.
Add the salt and nutmeg.
Cook until it thickens. You can then decided to add more milk or not.
Voila! Béchamel.
