The Basic Béchamel

Ooh, Béchamel...

The fancy name for white sauce, but I enjoy any excuse to practise my impeccable French accent.

So what exactly is it? It's one of the building blocks of a lot of home made recipes, it's incredibly versatile and once you've made it for the first time, it's simple.

First step is not to be afraid of the Béchamel. If you cook with confidence, your food will taste of it! Actually, that's probably rubbish, but it's way more fun to attack any new cooking venture with gusto, because then if you fail, at least it's been fun. But you will not fail at Béchamel. I promise.

So what do we start with...

Butter. Love a bit of butter. In fact, some say my name should be Betty, because I regularly buy a bit of butter, but it's never bitter. I am a salted butter kind of girl, but whatever you normally use will be fine, so long as it is butter and not marg, or *inhales sharply* some sort of healthy butter substitute.

What's next...

Lovely plain flour. If you do not have a jar of this in your kitchen, get one! I use flour way more often than I realised until I rearranged my kitchen, and being a short arse, had to ask someone taller than me every single time I needed the jar. Which turned out to be twice a day.

Third and finally...

Got milk? I'm a semi skimmed kind of gal with my milk, but full fat works well too.

So the rules of the Béchamel...one to one to one. And whisk, whisk, whisk! Single men, this sauce will make use of muscles you thought only had one purpose. *cough cough*

The steps to creating the perfect white sauce are:

• Measure out 100g butter (it's normally marked on the bottom of the pack in 50g increments. This was an utter revelation when I discovered this!
• Measure out 100g of flour. What I (cleverly) did recently, was to weigh my measuring spoon, then weigh it full of flour. Now I know I have a big one that holds 60g of flour and a little one that holds 10g.
• Measure 1 litre milk.
• Place a fairly large pan over a medium heat.
• Melt 100g of butter in said pan, until it is all liquid.
• Throw 100g of flour into the pan, and whisk it together with the butter.
• Do not panic - it is meant to look like stiff wet sand.
• Ensure all the flour is combined with the butter, and continue to stir it for one minute. This is to cook the raw flavour off the flour. You can cook this stage for longer, which will give you a darker sauce.
• Take the milk and add it gradually. Now, when I say gradually, I don't mean one steady slow pour. I mean add about a fifth and whisk like a mad man to incorporate it into the flour and butter. It will go really thick, and quite fast when you add the first splash of milk. Once it has thickened, add the next splash of milk and repeat the process. You want to keep going until all the milk is used up. Once you have added about half the milk, I normally add the rest in two large amounts. Keep whisking! That's the secret to no lumps.
• Continue to whisk for approximately ten minute, until your white sauce has thickened to the consistency you are looking for.
• Season! If you're cooking Italian with it, grate in about half a nutmeg. You'll thank me later.

Béchamel done. Also, you know that wet sand stuff in step 6? That's called a roux. You can make that and whisk it into all sorts of stuff to thicken it.

But what can I do with my sauce? Anything you like! Melt cheese through it and add it to cauliflower for cauliflower cheese. Swirl pesto through it for lasagne. It's also nice smeared on ham and cheese toasties. That lovely rich, creamy sauce.