Basic White Sauce - and Variations

 

Basic white sauce is needed for Welsh rarebit, custard or lasagne. Proper Sauce Béchamel is made by lovingly stirring 2 tablespoons of white flour into 2 tablespoons of butter over a low heat for three or four minutes. It’s then cooled and a cup of scalded milk is added. Into the pan goes a small onion studded with 2 or 3 cloves and half a bay leaf. This is then cooked until thick and smooth, after which it’s put in a moderate oven for 20 minutes, before straining and seasoning. If you’re in a hurry, you can simply stand and stir it until the sauce has thickened and all the floury flavour has gone. I believe sailors usually have other things to do and go for a lowbrow, non-gastronomic alternative, using cornflour. It’s incredibly easy to make well in one pan and yet cookery writers insist on making a big issue of it, with suggestions for double boilers, pre-heating the milk, etc, etc, which is a lot of trouble and results in extra washing up.

The simplest of white sauces consists of milk, cornflour and either salt and pepper or sweetening. After that, all sorts of goodies can be added, but let’s start from zero. The following recipe makes enough sauce to coat a lasagne, provide four servings of custard, and make a generous amount of Welsh rarebit for two.

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

 

2 tbsp cornflour

1 cup milk

salt and pepper

 

 Method:

• Put the cornflour into a small saucepan and add about a quarter of the milk.
• Blend until all the flour is mixed and a smooth thin paste results.
• Add the seasoning and then the rest of the milk. Mix again.
• Put the pan over a medium-high flame and stir the sauce constantly and fairly briskly until it starts to thicken. (You can tell that this is going to happen when it starts coating the side of the pan and the back of the spoon.)
• Still stirring, lower the heat and let the sauce boil.
• Once it’s boiling, continue cooking and stirring for one full minute and then remove the pan from the heat. This ensures that the starch is properly cooked. If it isn’t, it spoils the flavour of the sauce.

Notes

For best results, you need a first-rate saucepan. Too many stainless steel ones cook unevenly with the result that the sauce goes into lumps. If you have any doubts about your pan, use a flame-tamer and as low a heat as your patience will permit. Even with a whisk, once lumps have formed they’re almost impossible to remove. If using dried milk, add it as you mix in the cornflour, so that it dissolves when you heat the water.

This method guarantees you a smooth, cooked, white sauce.  Proper cooks use white flour instead of cornflour, in many instances, saying that it gives a better appearance – a sauce made with cornflour has a sheen on it that you may not want.  Food reformists object to using cornflour, because it’s super refined and has no nutrition apart from carbohydrate.  If either of these are your view, you can use wheat flour instead, but it will need about ten minutes cooking and really should be blended with a knob of butter, over a low heat before you start, to reduce the floury taste. You do not need to stir continually, once it’s brought to the boil, but keep an eye on it in case it catches and burns. You need 2 tbsp plain flour for 1 tbsp of cornflour. And you might want to have white flour for this purpose, so that you don’t have brown bits in your white sauce. But white flour is not as nutritious as whole wheat. Sigh. Nothing’s ever easy.

Best alternative: However, in my opinion by far the best way of making a quick Béchamel sauce, which has more flavour than that made with conrflour, cooks more quickly than that made with wheat flour and looks more attratctive than either, is to use gram (chickpea) flour.  This gives the sauce a delicate hint of yellow, which looks very attractive.  

 

Ingredients

 

  4 tbsp of gram flour 

knob of butter or 1 tbsp oilive oil

1 cup (plant) milk

1/2 tsp onion powder

 salt and pepper

 

Method:

•  Melt the butter or warm the oil in a small saucepan, over a medium heat.  Mix in the gram flour and cook gently for a few minutes.
• Add about 1/4 cup of milk and blend carefully, ensuring that there are no lumps. Then add the rest of the milk and the onion powder and raise the heat slightly and bring to a slow boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Gram flour can sometimes go through a lumpy stage as it thickens: just keep on stirring untl it's smooth.  It needs longer cooking longer than cornflour, but 5 minutes after it's become smooth should be plenty.  Taste it and see.  Raw gram flour tastes unpleasant - you will easily taste if it needs more cooking.  Adjust seasoning.
  

The above recipes will give you an exceedingly boring and bland white sauce. Personally, I think white sauce is pretty boring at the best of times and have never been able to see the logic of dumping a cup of it on an innocent cauliflower. The following suggestions and variations will help turn it into something that complements the rest of the food.

 

Variations:

• The first thing you can do to improve it is to add a large knob of butter with the seasoning. Once you have your confidence, you can actually melt this first and then stir the cornflour into it. A dollop of olive oil also enriches it.  
  
• If you have the patience, it’s well worth infusing the milk with flavourings. A tea infuser is useful for this: put a broken bay leaf, and a pinch of whatever herbs you fancy into the infuser and leave it for ten minutes or so in very hot milk. If you want something even better, a piece of onion, a garlic clove, a chunk of carrot, a couple of pieces of parsley, some mushroom stems, some broken cinnamon, a blade of mace – any or all of these can add a bit of character to a basic sauce. Put them in the cold milk and bring gradually to simmering point. Don’t boil or you’ll end up with a skin to deal with. Cover the milk while the flavours infuse, so that it stays warm longer. Be careful with mushrooms if you want a white white sauce, because they can colour it. Strain through a sieve before using. If you have any light-coloured vegetable stock, this is a good addition: mix it with dried milk.
• Cheese. Oh, lovely, wonderful cheese!  I dare say you can buy really good vegan cheese in large, cosmpolitan cities.  I have yet to find any, but as mentioned below, there is an acceptable alternative vegan sauce.  A generous addition will turn this boring gloop into a delightful adjunct to your vegetables and make an instant meal with pasta. Choose a cheese with a pretty strong flavour and grate away. A quarter of a cup will add interest; half a cup is about the minimum to give it a definite flavour. 
• Vegan cheese sauce can be made by substituting a couple of tbsp of nutritional yeast for the real thing.  I’ll be honest, it won’t be as good, but it will still be a vast improvement on white sauce. However, if you go to the trouble of infusing the milk and then add 1/2 tsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, it will be much improved. 
• Lemon juice. A tablespoon of this will add savour to your very basic sauce and complement carrots, for example. If you’re using a fresh lemon, add some of the rind, grated. This has much more oomph than the juice and adds a little colour. With the addition of honey, you will end up with a sweet sauce to go with puddings.
• Dried or mixed mustard, Worcestershire sauce, chilli: all these can be added to a standard white sauce to enhance the flavour, without substantially altering the texture. They will alter the colour, however.
• Green peppercorns, celery salt, dried minced garlic, and fresh or dried herbs will introduce a lot more character into the sauce, but will spoil the pure, unsullied whiteness, if this matters.
• If you add two, chopped, hard-boiled eggs, some chopped parsley and the rind and juice of half a lemon, pour it over cauliflower and sprinkle with a cup of breadcrumbs, fried in olive oil or butter, you end up with Cauliflower à la Polonaise. This turns the cauliflower into a main course and is great with deep-fried chunks of potato or Oven chips. Broccoli, courgettes, etc can be given the same treatment.
• A tablespoon or two of Dijon mustard makes for a very pleasant sauce with burgers.
• Fresh mushrooms fried in butter or olive oil, can be added to make a quick pasta sauce. Season with 1 tsp crushed green peppercorns, ½ tsp tarragon and/or dill (weed) and a clove of garlic. You could add a chopped onion and fry it with the mushroom, if you like. If you feel confident about making white sauce, the mushrooms can be fried in the saucepan and the cornflour added to that, to ensure that none of the delicious flavour is wasted. Use cream and you have a meal fit for a king!
• For a sweet sauce, omit salt and pepper and after the sauce is thickened, stir in a tbsp of honey and return to the heat. It can be further flavoured with vanilla essence, lemon juice or rind, orange juice or rind, rum, whisky, cocoa, coffee, etc. Brown sugar or treacle can be used instead of honey, for a different flavour – and colour.
• For extra richness, incorporate some cream. After the sauce has boiled, allow it to cool a little and then gently stir in the cream. If you need to reheat it, do so very gently so that it doesn’t boil, otherwise the cream may curdle.
• For custard, or lasagne, an egg, beaten in, adds extra richness. The easiest way to ensure that this doesn’t curdle, is to do the same as with cream. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk and heat it very carefully.

Cheese and Yoghurt Sauce

This is a very lazy, and very effective way of making a thick sauce to go over pancakes, lasagne and so on. In my opinion it tastes much better than white sauce, however carefully made.  I would be a little bit careful using it in the pressure cooker, however, because it might separate. If you make your own yoghurt (see recipe), you will usually have some on board. This recipe assumes that you have thick, Greek-style yoghurt, but if yours is on the thin side, use all yoghurt or add another egg.

 

Serves 2

 

1/2 cup Greek-style yoghurt

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 cup grated cheese

 

 Method:

• Beat the yoghurt, milk and egg together. Add the grated cheese and mix well.
• Pour over the dish and heat through, either on a low heat with a flame tamer on the top of the cooker, or in a moderate oven.

Variation:

I haven’t tried making a vegan version of this. Of course it’s easy to buy or make plant milk and you can buy or make plant milk yoghurt, too. The usual egg substitute is 1 tbsp ground flax seed to 3 tbsp water. Whisk in the water and then let it stand until it becomes gelatinous, about 5 minutes. This works well in baking, but I’m not sure if it would work in this recipe.

Tomato Sauce (Marinara Sauce)

For some reason, North Americans invariably refer to this as marinara sauce, which always sounds a bit pretentious to me!   Whatever you choose to call it, the easiest way to make it is with a can of chopped tomatoes.   However, if fresh tomatoes are cheap and full-flavoured, they are also very good, so long as you don’t mind little bits of skin in it. 

If you want to peel the tomatoes first, immerse the tomato in boiling water for 1 minute and then immediately plunge it into cold water to stop it cooking.  A bowl of seawater is fine for this. If you pierce the skin first, it is easier to start the peeling process.

 

Serves 2

1 onion

1 tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove

400 g/14 oz can tomatoes OR 4 or 5 fresh ones

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Dice the onion and cook it in the olive oil for 5 minutes or so. Dice the garlic and add it to the pan.
• When the garlic is softened, add the can of tomatoes, or the fresh ones, diced.
• Cook for 10 to 15 minutes over a moderate heat until the sauce has thickened to the texture you want. Season with salt and pepper.

Variations:

This is a very basic, but surprisingly good sauce. It can be seasoned with basil, thyme or any other herb that takes your fancy: fresh basil, of course is particularly good as is fresh Italian parsley. Cinnamon or chilli can also be used, and a dollop of red wine raises it to gourmet standards. If you are feeling especially elegant, put it through a wire sieve to make a smooth purée.

Pastry

Before proceeding any further, let me say that I do not claim to be anything of a pastry cook. This is partly because on a boat, it’s usually difficult to have everything cool. It’s also due to my reluctance to use expensive butter or unpleasant-tasting margarine and the fact that I dislike ‘rubbing in’ pastry. I suspect that I simply don’t have the touch to produce good pastry. However, whenever I serve it, people always seem to enjoy it, so I can at least assert that if you use this recipe, the results are edible!

The following recipe is easy and foolproof. It’s cheap, because there’s no butter in it and it’s made with wholemeal flour. While it doesn’t produce light and flaky results, it rolls out easily. It makes sufficient to make two decent-sized pasties, a 230 mm (9 in) frying-pan quiche, a 200 mm (8 in) flan tin quiche or to cover a pie.

To be honest, if I make anything with ‛pastry’ these days, I nearly always use Calzone dough instead.

If you have your own favoured recipe, this is the equivalent of what in the UK would be referred to as ‘half a pound’ of pastry, or 250 g, or the equivalent of making North American pastry with a cup of flour.

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup water

salt and pepper

1 cup wholewheat flour

 

Method:

• Put the oil, water, salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk together with a mini whisk or broad-bladed knife.

• Mix in the flour, finishing off by kneading gently with your hand.
• Roll out the pastry on a lightly-floured board or counter.

There! It really couldn’t be easier, could it?

Quick Curry Sauce

I’m sure no Indian cook would own this one; however it is useful for extending some leftovers or mixing in with a can of beans. If you cook some rice in the pressure cooker while you’re making this, you get an almost instant meal.

 

Serves 2

 

2 tbsp olive or coconut oil

1 onion

1 garlic clove or 1/2 tsp garlic paste

fresh ginger or 1/2 tsp ginger paste

2 tbsp gram flour

1½ cups water

1 tbsp curry paste OR 1 tbsp curry powder and 1 tbsp tomato purée

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt 

 

Method:

• Heat the oil in a saucepan. Chop the onion, dice the garlic and ginger and fry in the oil until softened. If you’re using curry powder, add this now and cook for another minute or two.
• Add the gram flour and a little of the water. Stir until any lumps of flour have disappeared and then add the rest of the water. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly.
• When the sauce has boiled, lower the heat (and add the curry paste). If you’re using curry powder, add the tomato purée. Stir and add the lemon juice. Add salt to taste.
• Leave on a low heat to simmer for 5 minutes so that the gram flour is completely cooked. If it’s too thick, add a little more water, or liquid from the can of beans, if you’re using them.

Variations:

• For Baked bean curry, which tastes surprisingly good, add a tin of baked beans to the above sauce.

• Add cooked vegetables for an instant meal.
• Try frying plantain with the onions.

Hollandaise Sauce

Perhaps this isn’t exactly a basic recipe, but it’s a lovely one to have in your repertoire. Typically, it’s served with fresh fish such as salmon, but it also goes superbly with fresh asparagus, which is anyway such a luxury, that it deserves the best of treatment. It’s also very popular poured over poached eggs on toast.

If you’re unacquainted with this sauce, the best way to describe it’s like hot mayonnaise, but somehow, even richer. I haven’t tried making a vegan version of this.

 

Serves 2

 

1½ tsp lemon juice

1 tbsp water

1 egg

50 g (2 oz)/4 tbsp butter

 

Method:

• Boil water in a small saucepan and then take it off the stove.
• Find a bowl that will sit comfortably over the pan, but not so deeply as to displace the hot water.
• Put the lemon juice, water, salt and pepper in the bowl.
• Beat in the egg, with a wire whisk and then add a quarter of the butter. Continue whisking until the butter has melted. By now the sauce should be starting to thicken.
• Add the rest of the butter a quarter at a time, whisking all the time.
• Taste. Add a little more lemon juice if you like.
• The sauce should be served immediately, but it will keep warm if you leave the bowl over the hot water.

If you find that the water has cooled down too quickly, you can put it back over a very low flame on a flame tamer. The water must not boil because it will then effectively scramble the egg, which will ruin the sauce.