LPT: You can save time and pots when cooking Bechamel/white sauce by cooking the butter and flour ahead of time and fridging it

I love Bechamel (white) sauce as a topping for pasta, potatoes, or a base for cream soup. I use the basic concept from the 1997 Joy of Cooking:

• Simmer 1 1/3 Cups milk in a saucepan.
• Melt 2 TBS butter in a different saucepan and cook until it doesn't smell oily, a couple minutes.
• (Optional: Add 1 tsp curry paste, or other flavorings, and cook 1 min.)
• Add 2 TBS flour to the butter and mix into a paste.
• Slowly add the simmering milk into the butter/flour mix, whisking constantly to avoid lumps.
• Cook about 5 minutes, until sauce thickens. Salt to taste, maybe 1/3 tsp. Serve hot.

It's a little complicated to be juggling the simmering milk and also the flour/ butter mix, without burning either, and while cooking whatever meal the sauce is for. But if you pour the milk in cold, the sauce develops irreversible clumps and doesn't thicken as much.

A few months ago, I read a housekeeping book from the 1880's, and it mentioned that the flour/butter mix could be prepared ahead of time. So I tried it:

Day 1:

• Melt 2 TBS butter in a different saucepan and cook until it doesn't smell oily, a couple minutes.
• (Optional: Add 1 tsp curry paste, or other flavorings, and cook 1 min.)
• Add 2 TBS flour to the butter and mix into a paste.
• Let cool, wrap in plastic, store in fridge.

Day 1+n where 0<=n<=7:

• Simmer 1 1/3 Cups milk in a saucepan.
• Cut off a chunk of the pre-prepared flour/butter mix, chop into pieces, and add to the simmering milk.
• Whisk, then cook 5 minutes to thicken. Salt to taste, maybe 1/3 tsp. Done.

I've now tried this 3 times, and it worked like a charm each time! No lumps! The sauce was thick and I think it tasted the same.

I'm so excited! This will be so much more convenient for me than cooking two pots for every dinner uses Bechamel sauce!

Submitted January 01, 2017 at 11:12AM by newbie_here_sayHi http://ift.tt/2iwIgO3