A simple white sauce is a useful addition to any cooks repertoire. It is incredibly quick to make, and can easily form the basis of several wonderful meals, such as macaroni and cheese for instance.
How to Make a Simple White Sauce
- Pour a little milk (approximately one cup full or a quarter of a pint) into a pan and begin to heat on a low to moderate hob setting.
- Add a heaped dessert spoon of plain flour to the milk and whisk it in using a wooden spoon or a small hand whisk.
- Let the mixture gently heat for a few minutes, whilst continuing to stir. This is important as if the flour doesn't cook properly at this stage, the sauce will taste horribly of uncooked flour.
- Turn the heat up a little and gradually add more milk (about another three quarters of a pint).
- Keep stirring until the sauce thickens. This can happen very quickly, so don't leave the pan for a second. White sauce burns very easily, hence all the stirring!
This should provide easily enough sauce for a family of four. To turn this sauce into macaroni and cheese, boil the macaroni whilst making the above sauce. When the white sauce begins to thicken add a few handfuls of grated cheese, and stir it in until melted. This is now the perfect cheese sauce to add macaroni to.
Cooking With Cheese Sauce
The same recipe for a white cheese sauce can be added to cooked broccoli and cauliflower to make a tasty vegetable dish. It also works well with fusilli pasta cooked with a selection of vegetables such as red peppers, cherry tomatoes, sweetcorn and baby carrots. Most dishes will also be improved by sprinkling a little extra cheese on the top and baking them in the oven for about 10 minutes.
A True Roux Sauce
True Roux sauces, are normally also made with clarified butter. The sauce starts off with melted butter, then flour is added, then milk or stock. It is much easier to encounter problems making this sauce, however, especially if margarine is substituted for clarified butter, because then it tends to coagulate or curdle.
A White Sauce With No Milk or Flour
At the risk of great embarrassment, this writer is willing to admit to cooking up a pan of pasta only to discover there was no milk in the fridge or flour in the cupboard. So it's good to know a delicious white sauce can still be achieved just by warming up a carton of crème fraiche and melting in some cheese. In fact, it might just be the simplest white sauce of all.
Further Reading: Cooks may also be interested in this article on How to Remove the Smell of Garlic from your hands.
Sources: ibiblio.org
 |
