Comfort Food Defined: Bullet-Proof Béchamel

It's that time of the year again: when all you want to do is hide under the duvet, curled up with a cat (or dog) or two,  and wait out the next few months until spring returns. If hibernating is not a possibility, then loading up on comfort foods is the next big thing. Granted, if you tend to indulge over the holidays, meals for the first few weeks (or days) of the new year should err on the lighter end of things. However, there will come a time when you will want to tuck into something substantial and heart-warming, a food equivalent to a down comforter. For me, duvet-substituting foods usually involve some form of carb, whether it be pasta or some other grain, but most often it takes the form of béchamel. You can find a recipe for béchamel in one of my early blog posts over here. However, the version below is bullet-proof, so unless you want to see my early attempts at embarrassingly bad photography, you should use this newer recipe.



Sometimes called white sauce, béchamel is a parent's secret weapon for camouflaging vegetables: its creamy yumminess will just about make any green vegetable palatable to picky eaters. Therein lies the beauty of this foundation sauce: once you've mastered it, you can turn any vegetable and carb combination into gooey, baked goodness. You can then take it up a notch: add a generous amount of grated cheese, and you get Sauce Mornay. Stir in some pureed onion marmalade, and you have a velvety smooth Sauce Soubise. You see, everyone thinks that French cooking is complicated, but it's really all about good foundation techniques, and building up on the basics. And so, the béchamel...



This version goes against everything I ever read in a book, saw on cooking shows (including Julia Child's!) or was taught in cooking school. But it works E V E R Y  S I N G L E time, no ifs, no buts, and best of all, no lumps! I give two different amounts of milk in the recipe so that you can adjust the thickness of your béchamel to your needs. Dairy-free options can be used instead of cow's milk and butter, however, a gluten-free béchamel requires different techniques, which I will try to cover in a separate post.



Bullet-Proof Sauce Béchamel
Yields 2-3 cups/ 500ml-750ml

45g/ 5 Tbs flour
45g/ 3 Tbs butter
500ml-750ml/ 2-3 cups milk, fridge-cold
5 scrapes of nutmeg or 1 pinch of ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pan, melt the butter over a medium heat. Add the flour, and stir constantly using a whisk.
Cook the roux (flour and butter mix) until it turns white and goes foamy, 3-5 minutes.
Pour the desired amount of cold milk into the pan in one go. Whisk in the roux, making sure to pick up any bits hiding in the corner of the pan.
Turn the heat up to medium-high, and cook until the milk comes to a gentle boil, whisking constantly.
Keep simmering the béchamel for 90 seconds to ensure that the flour is cooked through.
Remove from heat. 



The béchamel is ready to use straight away or can be transferred into a container and refrigerated for up to three days. If setting aside for later, prevent the formation of the dreaded skin by placing a sheet of cling film directly onto the surface of the béchamel. Cauliflower cheese or a mid-week pasta bake no longer feels like a big enterprise.



Bon App'!