Bechamel sauce ( ) is a

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French word t ...

traditionally made from a white

roux Roux () is a mixture of flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. The flour is added to the melted fat or oil on the stove top, blended until smooth, and cooke ...

(butter and flour in a 1:1 mixture by weight) and milk. Bechamel may also be referred to as besciamella (Italy), besamel (Greece), or white sauce (U.S.). French, Italian and Greek bechamel sauce recipes include salt and

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

as a seasoning base. Bechamel sauce is one of the "mother sauces" of

French cuisine French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...

Origin

The first recipe of a sauce similar to bechamel is in the book by

François Pierre de La Varenne François () is a French language, French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis (given name), Francis. People with the given name * Francis I of France, King of France (), known as "the Father and Restorer of ...

in 1651, made with a

, as in modern recipes. The name of the sauce was given in honour of Louis de Béchameil, a financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to

King Louis XIV of France , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ve ...

in the 17th century. The first named béchamel sauce appears in ''The Modern Cook,'' written by Vincent La Chapelle and published in 1733, in which the following recipe for "Turbots (a la Bechameille)" appears: There are many legends regarding the origin of bechamel sauce. For example, it is said that it was created in Tuscany under the name "Salsa Colla" and brought to France with

Catherine de Medici Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King H ...

but this sauce was totally different from modern bechamel sauce.

Uses

Béchamel can be used as is in dishes such as lasagne al forno (Italian) or

moussaka Moussaka (, , ) is an eggplant- or potato-based dish, often including ground meat, which is common in the Balkans and the Middle East, with many local and regional variations. The best-known version in Europe and the Americas is the Greek vari ...

(Greek), or as the base for other sauces such as Mornay, which is béchamel with

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

. Béchamel is also used in the Greek dish

pastitsio Pastitsio ( el, παστίτσιο, ''pastítsio'') is a Greek baked pasta dish with ground meat and béchamel sauce, with variations of the dish found in other countries of the Mediterranean Sea. Name and origin Pastitsio takes its name from t ...

References

External links

History and legends of Béchamel sauce

Free Culinary School Video Episode 11
��An educational podcast episode that talks about the classical French technique used for making Sauce Béchamel and a few secondary sauces including Mornay, Basic Cream, Cheddar Cheese and Mustard Sauce. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bechamel Sauce French sauces Italian sauces Mother sauces White sauces

Origin

Uses

See also

References

External links