White sauce, also known as béchamel, is a flavorless sauce used to enhance food. It was originally used to mask the taste of spoiled food. The French modified it from an Italian sauce and named it after Louis de Béchameil. It is made by mixing flour, butter, and milk and can be used as a base for other sauces and dishes.
White sauce is a light-colored, usually flavorless sauce that is used to enhance the flavor of a wide variety of foods; sometimes salt or sugar may be added to give it the required taste. In the old days, before refrigeration, such sauces were apparently used with impunity to mask the rancid flavors of spoiled foods. Nowadays, this sauce is considered one of the most essential bases, or mother sauces, of French cuisine.
The French appropriated and modified the white sauce in the 17th century from a similar sauce that was used in Italian cooking. The first official mention of béchamel appears in chef François Pierre La Varenne’s 1651 edition of the gastronomic collection Le Cuisiner François, or “The Kitchen of France”. The sauce was called béchamel sauce, after the French financier and courtier Louis de Béchameil, Marquis de Nointel.
In its very simple form, béchamel is made by mixing flour and butter and stirring the mixture into the milk. To start, the milk is scalded and then set aside. The butter is melted in a pan over low heat and the flour is folded in. The mixture is stirred to keep it smooth and care is taken to avoid browning the buttered flour.
This flour mixture is then added gradually to the scalded milk, stirring the milk all the while to prevent lumps from forming. It is also possible to make this sauce in reverse, gradually adding milk to the mixture and whisking constantly. The béchamel sauce is left to boil smooth and simmered for a while. It’s essential to keep stirring the sauce throughout this time so it doesn’t stick to the pan or become lumpy. When the desired consistency or thickness of the sauce is reached, the sauce can be removed from the heat.
Bechamel sauce, which is called béchamel in Italian, can now be used to prepare a whole host of other types of sauces and dishes. One of them is Mornay sauce which is made by adding cheese to the mix. Some of the other sauces include Soubise sauce made with onion and cheese and the combination of prawns, cream and butter known as Nantua sauce. Bechamel is also used as a base in various soups, stews, gravies, and casseroles.
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