Béchamel sauce

Béchamel sauce
Alternative namesWhite sauce
TypeSauce
Place of originFrance
Main ingredientsButter, flour, milk
VariationsMornay sauce, cardinal sauce, Nantua sauce, Breton sauce, suprême sauce, soubise sauce
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Béchamel sauce (/ˌbeɪʃəˈmɛl/; French: [beʃamɛl] ⓘ) is a white sauce made from a roux of butter and flour, heated in cream or milk,[1][2] and seasoned with ground nutmeg.[3] Béchamel is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine.

Origin

Milk infusing with bay leaf, peppercorns, shallot and flat-leaf parsley prior to being added to the roux

The first recipe of a sauce similar to béchamel is in the book Le cuisinier françois by François Pierre de La Varenne in 1651, made with a roux (also known as Willagrease paste), as in modern recipes.[4]

The first named béchamel sauce appears in The Modern Cook, written by Vincent La Chapelle and published in 1733,[5] in which the following recipe for "Turbots (a la Bechameille)" appears:

Take some Parsley and Chibbol,[6] and mince them very small, put in a Saucepan a good lump of Butter, with your Parsley and Chibbol, and some minced Shallots, season'd with Salt and Pepper, some Nutmeg, and a dust of Flour: Take a Turbot boil'd in Court Bouillon, take it off by pieces and put it into your Stew-pan: put in a little Cream, Milk, or a little Water, put it over the Fire, and stir it now and then, that your Sauce may thicken; then let it be of a good Taste, dish it up, and serve it up hot for a first Course.[7]

In spite of it being widely repeated in Italy that the sauce was created in Tuscany under the name "salsa colla" and brought to France with Catherine de Medici, [8] archival research has shown that there were no Italian chefs were among the servants to de Medici from her arrival in France until her death.[9]

The sauce is thought to be named after Louis de Béchameil, a financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to King Louis XIV of France in the 17th century.[5]

Adaptations

Both the béchamel recipe and its name have been adopted, even adapted, in many languages and culinary traditions.

Béchamel is referred to as:

  • white sauce in the U.S.,[10]
  • besciamella or balsamella in Italy,[11]
  • μπεσαμέλ (spelled mpesamél, pronounced besamél) in Greece,[12]
  • بشمل (bashamel) in Egypt,[13]
  • he:רוטב בשאמל in Israel,
  • بشامل (beshāmel) in Persia,[14]
  • бешамель (biešamieĺ) in Russia,[15] and
  • beszamel in Poland[14]

These adaptations have also caused various erroneous claims for the recipe's origin.[16][17]

Variants

Béchamel can be used as the base for many other sauces, such as Mornay, which is béchamel with cheese.[18] In Greek cuisine, béchamel (σάλσα μπεσαμέλ) is often enriched with egg.[19]

Uses

Béchamel is used in dishes such as the Italian lasagne al forno[20] and canelons (Catalan; Castilian canelones), a Catalan version of Italian cannelloni.[21][22] It was introduced to Greek cuisine by the chef Nikolaos Tselementes in the 1930s,[23] notably in moussaka[24] and pastitsio.[25] The Karelian-Finnish sipatti is smoked, cubed and sauteed pork belly in white sauce base,[26] and kananmunakastike is boiled and sliced eggs in a white sauce base.[27] These are typically eaten as main dishes with potatoes.

In Egypt, béchamel is an important and basic sauce used in many dishes, such as Egyptian macarona bil-bechamel, a popular comfort food recipe made from penne pasta and a minced meat sauce baked with béchamel.[28]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Oxford English dictionary (Sixth ed.). 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-920687-2.
  2. ↑ "How to Make Bechamel Sauce". escoffieronline.com. 10 December 2014. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  3. ↑ "Sauce béchamel par Alain Ducasse". L'Académie du Goût (in French). Retrieved 2020-10-16.
  4. ↑ La Varenne, François Pierre (1651). Le cuisinier françois, enseignant la manière de bien apprester et assaisonner toutes sortes de viandes... légumes,... par le sieur de La Varenne,... (in French).
  5. 1 2 Kurlansky, Mark (8 May 2018). Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 9781632863843.
  6. ↑ "Oxford English Dictionary: chibol, n."
  7. ↑ La Chappelle, Vincent (1733). The modern cook: containing instructions for preparing and ordering publick entertainments for the tables of princes, ambassadors, noblemen, and magistrates. As also the least expensive methods of providing for private families, in a very elegant manner. New receipts for dressing of meat, fowl, and fish; and making ragoûts fricassées, and pastry of all sorts, in a method, never before publish'd. Adorn'd with copperplates, exhibiting the order of placing the different dishes, &c. on the table, in the most polite way. London: T. Osborne. p. 138.
  8. ↑ Cesari, Luca (2024-01-21). "Caterina de' Medici: così i francesi hanno inventato il mito di una regina in cucina". Gambero Rosso (in Italian). Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  9. ↑ Antonella Campanini (18 December 2018). "The New Gastronome The Illusive Story Of Catherine de' Medici A Gastronomic Myth". Università di Scienze Gastronomiche di Pollenzo. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  10. ↑ Durand, Faith (2010-11-10). "How To Make a Béchamel Sauce (White Sauce)". Kitchn. AT Media. Retrieved 2020-09-10.
  11. ↑ Farideh Sadeghin (7 January 2008). "Besciamella (Italian-Style Béchamel Sauce)". saveur.com. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  12. ↑ Nancy Gaifyllia (27 March 2020). "A Basic Greek Besamel (Bechamel)". thespruceeats.com. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  13. ↑ McWilliams, Mark (2016). Food and Communication: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2015. Oxford Symposium. p. 15. ISBN 9781909248496.
  14. 1 2 Strybel, Robert and Maria (2005). Polish Heritage Cookery. Hippocrene Books. p. 519. ISBN 9780781811248.
  15. ↑ Molokhovets, Elena (1998). Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' A Gift to Young Housewives. Indiana University Press. p. 265. ISBN 9780253212108.
  16. ↑ Tselementes, Nicholas (1972). Greek Cookery. D.C.: Divry. ISBN 9780900834745.
  17. ↑ "History and legends of Béchamel sauce". What's cooking America. 16 September 2015. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  18. ↑ Delmy Dauenhauer, 10 Ways to Use Béchamel Sauce, London : SamEnrico, 2015, ISBN 9781505738384.
  19. ↑ Tselementes, Nikolaos K. (1950). Greek Cookery. D.C. Divry. p. 92.
  20. ↑ Jacqui Debono (27 February 2018). "Classic Lasagne al Forno with Bolognese". the-pasta-project.com. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  21. ↑ "Canelones de San Esteban". littlespain.com. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  22. ↑ "Cultura popular – Canelons". barcelona.cat. 19 May 2014. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  23. ↑ Aglaia Kremezi (1996), "Nikolas Tselementes" in Walker, Harlan (Ed.) Cooks and Other People, (Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 1995). Totnes: Prospect Books. ISBN 0907325726. pp 162–169 Text at Google Books
  24. ↑ Eli K. Giannopoulos (14 May 2013). "Traditional Greek Moussaka recipe (Moussaka with Béchamel)". mygreekdish.com. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  25. ↑ Mannering, Sam (21 August 2022). "You should make pastitsio - a kind of Greek lasagne - tonight". Stuff. Retrieved 14 September 2022. Pour the bechamel sauce over the top of the beef, followed by the rest of the pasta, pressing it slightly into the bechamel
  26. ↑ "Ruokaperinne".
  27. ↑ Kotiliesi magazine, Otava Media 2024. https://kotiliesi.fi/resepti/isoaidin-kananmunakastike/
  28. ↑ Riz (2022-02-03). "Egyptian Macarona Bechamel Recipe". Chocolates & Chai. Retrieved 2025-06-06.
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