Sauce Veloute & Sauce Bechamel

In addition to stocks, in my second day of my cooking class, we also made two basic sauces. The first being a basic white sauce known as Sauce Bechamel, and the second being a white gravy known as Sauce Veloute.

To make either sauce, you start off by making a roux. A roux (pronounced 'ru') is a mixture of melted butter and flower, to which you add milk for a Bachamel, or white stock for a Veloute.

The ratio of flower and butter to liquid is 1/2 an ounce of each to 1 cup of liquid, and of course, salt and pepper to taste. Additionally, for a Sauce Bachamel you will also add 1/4 of a bay leaf and freshly grated nutmeg (a micro-plane grater will be your best bet).

When making the roux, you want it to get to a "wet sand" consistency before adding the liquid. Once the milk or stock is added, keep mixing it until the roux is completely mixed into the liquid.

In our cooking class, to know when our sauces were almost done, we learned that if you scoop some of the sauce up and pour it back into the sauce and it doesn't make any noise, it is almost done.

If there are lumps in your sauce, which there most likely will be when you make it for the first time, do not worry.  Simply pour the sauce through a strainer and you are good to go.