Only_Oli (The O_Zone)

This post is to save for future reference the recipe for Bechamel sauce, the base sauce for French cuisine

Bechamel was a french financier during the reign of king Louis ivx, so I should know it by heart !!

Quantities :

The easy way is to decide first how much sauce you need, then use 1/10th of flour and butter.

so for 500ml of milk (enough for a small lasagna)

Butter –  50g

The same quantity of flour – 50g

salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

Cooking:

Heat the butter until it is lightly brown, take off heat, mix the flour in one go, mix well to make a paste, and bring back to heat, cooking a little bit more until the flour is also taking on some blonde colour, add cold milk in one single go to avoid lumps (if you add milk too slowly you will get lumps), it will take roughly 3 minutes to get back to boiling.

It is very important to keep whisking the bechamel as it is cooking. The highest risk is that it will stick to the bottom of the pan. When milk and flour are boiling again, cook for approximately 3 minutes.

To find out if the bechamel is cooked. Take a table spoon and dip it into the bechamel, and make a line with your finger on the back of the spoon. If the path made by your finger stays clearly visible and the sauce does not drip to fill the path of your finger, then the sauce is ready.

We had a fantastic evening with Daniel Galmiche and our closest friends.

Below a few pictures of how to serve and then eat a beautiful piece of beef….then you must say thank you to the Michelin starred chef Daniel Galmiche : Link

This is a very nice dish from Lyon, France. It is a bit tricky to prepare the first time, but once you have done a few, it becomes second nature and can be prepared quickly. The secret in this recipe is to make sure that you “dry” the “panade” as much as possible. This will allow for Quenelles that will keep their shape in the boiling water and will also puff nicely if you cook them in the oven afterwards with sauces….Yummm….You can also cook in “hot” water rather than boiling water, it actually changes a little the texture which is very nice. As long as the water is above 67 degres, the eggs will cook.

Ingredients (for basic quenelles):

250ml Milk, 50g Butter (demi-sel),

10g of fleur de sel and teaspoon of pepper, nutmeg

100g Flour, 50g Fine semolina, 3 eggs.

To prepare the panade, put the butter and spices in a saucepan, once butter fully melted, take off the heat and put all the flour in one go. Mix quickly with a spoon or spatula.

Put the saucepan back on the heat. Here is the trick, mix continuously until the pastry comes off the saucepan as a ball of pastry. Then add the semolina, continue to mix until you get a ball.

Put the saucepan off the heat, add the eggs one by one, mixing well in between each egg.

Once the mixture is nice and smooth, put in a separate container with cling film and in the fridge for a couple of hours.

To cook the Quennelles, take out of the fridge and make small quenelles with 2 tablespoons. Like in this video. Drop in boiling or fairly hot water for 5 minutes. I like to use a chicken stock water to give a bit of taste already to the quenelles “Nature”.

In the picture above, I serve the quenelle with a very light soup, the kids love it.

You can also prepare the quenelle in the oven (after cooking in the water). My preferred one is sauce Nantua.

Enjoy…