White sauce
Up: 🍳Home cooking
Ingredients
- 25 g (1 oz) unsalted butter
- 25 g (1 oz) plain flour
- 250 ml (1/2 pint) milk
Method
- Melt the butter under a medium heat.
- If making "mac and cheese" aka Macaroni cheese, stir in a teaspoon of mustard powder.
- Add the plain flour and "cook out" the flour for a few minutes; this removes the raw flour taste, do not skip.
- Remove from heat and start adding the milk a dribble at a time, stirring in - the most important moment is as the mixture starts to become liquid, and once the sauce is liquid larger amounts can be stirred in at a time.
- Once all the milk is incorporated and stirred in, return to a high heat, continuously stirring until the sauce has thickened, without allowing it to burn on the bottom.
- For cheese sauce, grate in your preferred amount of mature cheddar and stir until smooth while still hot.
- Season with cracked black pepper (and grated nutmeg).
Hint
Not "half fat to flour" as we're aiming for a liquid, not a solid result!
Tip
When adding milk, stir gently while the milk is just added, and more vigorously as it incorporates into the mixture - stirring too vigorously too early will result in spattering milk over the kitchen.
Tip
The right time to remove lumpiness is now, if it is lumpy stir until the lumps disappear, as adding more milk will make the consistency difference between the lumps and sauce worse.
Info
Similar to the French "Bechamel" sauce, except that has more work steeping an onion studded with cloves and bay leaf in the milk, which is heated. In French cuisine a bechamel with grated cheese added is a Mornay sauce.