Secret Sauce to Life: The Five Mothers

Being a professional chef I would like to share some of my knowledge. So I am going to do a weekly post with cooking tips/strategies/recipes/etc. I am going to start very simple, I'm sure some of you will be asking why I'm even posting this but you would be surprised to know how many people do not know the simplest methods of cooking. Thanx @keepinitcrypto for the title idea.

I would like to start with the five mother sauces. These sauces are the basics of french cooking & are used as a base to create any other sauce you can imagine. A sauce is essentially a liquid, plus a thickening agent, plus whatever flavorings you wish to incorporate.

This week I will describe BECHAMEL SAUCE. Bechamel is one of the simplest & most versatile of the mother sauces because it doesn't require stock/base. It is a basic cream sauce & can be used for any creamy pasta, cheese sauce, mustard sauce, cauliflower puree, etc. It is also one of my favorites, because it is the beginning for creating "cream of whatever" sauce to use in casseroles or pasta dishes. But those we will discuss later.

For now, a typical Bechamel will require 1 tablespoon butter, 1.5 tablespoons flour, & 1 Cup milk/heavy cream. This will yield 8oz of sauce.

Honestly heavy cream is preferred over milk because it will make a more rich & flavorful sauce, the fats also don't separate/"break" as easily as milk will when put to heat. But it is much more expensive & not as common in the standard kitchen, which is why regular old milk is what I will use.

So you take your butter in a sauce pan on medium heat & melt it.

Add the flour

Whisk the flour & butter together until it is creamy looking. This is known as a Rue and is a basic thickening agent.

Now add your milk/cream

Bring to a slow boil & whisk until it starts to thicken. The sauce should stick to a spoon & coat the edge of the pot or whatever container you put it in. It will be thick & creamy!

& boom! You can say your all frenchy & made your own Bechamel sauce. Later we will discuss how to turn this into cream of whatever sauces, mac & cheese sauce, alfredo, creamy herb pasta, cauliflower puree, etc.

I hope this has been a helpful tutorial...wait until next week for my next cooking post :)