# HELP BECHAMEL PROBLEM



## miccru (Sep 1, 2011)

I'm practicing my bechamel trying to make it perfect so I can A's my sauce test on Wens. I didn't measure it because I want to think on my head also I dont have a scale, it did came out good but how come its all thick and not a saucey like I wanted it to be. The sauce is like the consistency to make Lasagna.

can I add a little bit of water to make it smooth


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## petemccracken (Sep 18, 2008)

More milk??


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

Walk us through the procedure.  When making bechamel think equal parts butter and flour.  Then add enough warm milk to get to your desired consistancy.


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

Yup, more milk, not water.


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## petemccracken (Sep 18, 2008)

Béchamel: 10:1 by weight, milk:roux

Veloute: 10: by weight, stock:roux

Roux: 3:2 by weight, flour:butter


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Standard bechamel ratios are 2 tbs butter, 2 tbs flour, 2 cups (1 pint) milk, a grating of nutmeg, a little salt, a little pulverized white pepper. You should be able to eyeball this to extreme accuracy. If you can't, better get started learning. It helps if you know your cookware.

Measure (could be by eyeball) about 2-1/2 cups of milk into a pan and warm it (or make a soubise). In a separate pan, melt the butter over medium heat, add the flour all at once, and stir. Cook the roux until the raw is off (blonde roux), raise the heat to medium-high and add 1 cup of the milk. Whisk until the milk comes to a boil (won't take long in this small a quantity), and the flour thickens it as much as it can (about 10 seconds past the boil). Add another cup of milk, bring to a boil, and check the thickness. If it needs more thinning, add the remaining milk. When the bechamel is as you like it, remove it from the heat. Grate a little nutmeg and whisk it in off the flame, add salt and pepper, whisk, and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Just as an FYI, an Escoffier style bechamel uses a milk soubise. Cut an onion in half, peel it, stick four (not three or five) cloves in it, put it in 2-1/2 cups cold milk, bring the milk to a simmer, cover and cook until the onion softens (about twenty minutes). Discard the onion or use it for another purpose. Use the soubise to make your bechamel (duh). Old school French cooking, but still effective.

You don't absolutely need to warm the milk ahead of time to make a smooth bechamel, but it makes things go much faster. You absolutely do need to bring things to a full boil when you're thickening with flour. Not only that, you need to bring things back to the boil with any liquid addition.

Also worth remembering: You can add hot roux to a hot liquid; hot liquid to a hot roux; cold liquid to a hot roux; and cold roux to a hot liquid (beurre manie is a parallel); hot liquid onto a cold roux is iffy (but why would you?); but you cannot add cold roux to a cold liquid or _vice versa_.

Hope this helps,
BDL


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## chrisbelgium (Oct 2, 2010)

If you make a bechamel properly, you will never have problems.

Many add hot milk to the roux, this is not right! Always add COLD milk to the hot roux (=approx. 50/50 butter-flour). Use a whisk, not a wooden spoon!

Once the roux is cooked for a little while on low fire and all flour is nicely incorporated, add a small amount of cold milk and whisk vigourously into a smooth paste. Add some more cold milk, whisk again and let boil very gently. Keep adding cold milk in small steps if the sauce is still too thick. 

When the right consistency is reached, let the sauce boil gently to get rid of flour taste. Stir from time to time.

Season with s&p, nutmeg.

When using hot milk on hot roux, there's a much bigger chance your sauce will have lumps!

Adding other ingredients will make another sauce;

- bechamel and cooked onion purée; sauce Soubise

- bechamel and cheese; sauce Mornay

- bechamel and tomato purée; sauce Aurore


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

ChrisBelgium said:


> If you make a bechamel properly, you will never have problems.
> 
> Many add hot milk to the roux, this is not right! Always add COLD milk to the hot roux (=approx. 50/50 butter-flour)....
> 
> When using hot milk on hot roux, there's a much bigger chance your sauce will have lumps!


I've always added hot milk to my roux. Have you actually ever done it or are you just repeating something you've learned? Because I've never ever had lumps. Ever.

Bechamel is my favorite substance on earth.


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## jmueller (Sep 30, 2011)

I always add the milk at room temperature, never had lumps either. And I agree with what's already been said - you probably need more milk.


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## chrisbelgium (Oct 2, 2010)

Koukouvagia said:


> I've always added hot milk to my roux. Have you actually ever done it or are you just repeating something you've learned? Because I've never ever had lumps. Ever.
> 
> Bechamel is my favorite substance on earth.


Adding cold milk to a hot roux for making bechamel is truly basic culinary knowledge! And to answer your question, no I haven't used hot milk to make bechamel, why would I?

On the other hand, I frequently make a velouté, where as you know, the milk is replaced by stock, in my case mostly chickenstock. The circumstances are many times so that the stock is still very hot when adding it to the roux. As you may know it's really hard to control the speed in which the binding occurs when adding hot liquid to hot roux. In this case it's a matter of whisking at full speed, no?


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

I agree with BDL . The onion he is talking about is a half onion attach a bay leaf with a few cloves used as nails. we used to call studded onion. Any time I have ever made Bechamel it is strained after cooking (forced through a chinoise) nutmeg salt and white pepper, ansd I prefer room temp milk. I then after straining finish the sauce with heavy cream.


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Cold liquid to hot roux is one of several good ways, but not "basic" in the sense that it's necessary or better. There's nothing wrong with it and sometimes It's more convenient, especially when making small amounts of _bechamel, veloute_ or whatever -- and times will run proportionally short. You should whisk constantly anyway.

Speed is the point of hot into hot; and I said so in my advice to the OP. If the roux is properly made, and the sauce appropriately whisked when the milk and roux are combined, there are no lumps. Smoothness and speed of combination aren't substantially different from using a _beurre manie_. where the liquid must be hot. And really, when you're making large quantities of a roux thickened sauce, it's a lot more practical to do it hot into hot or cold roux into hot liquid, otherwise you end up stirring forever waiting for the pot to come to the boil.

Don't add milk at a_ rolling boil_ to roux or vice versa -- not because of thickening issues, but because holding milk at a _rolling boil_ for more than a few seconds is problematic. It "cheeses" and loses its sweetness so easily, it's a good idea to keep your temps under control. It's not an uncommon issue in home or pro kitchens. I should have mentioned it,

BDL


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

ChrisBelgium said:


> Adding cold milk to a hot roux for making bechamel is truly basic culinary knowledge! And to answer your question, no I haven't used hot milk to make bechamel, why would I?
> 
> On the other hand, I frequently make a velouté, where as you know, the milk is replaced by stock, in my case mostly chickenstock. The circumstances are many times so that the stock is still very hot when adding it to the roux. As you may know it's really hard to control the speed in which the binding occurs when adding hot liquid to hot roux. In this case it's a matter of whisking at full speed, no?


If you haven't done it then you can't speak from experience, so you can't really be sure that adding hot milk to hot roux causes lumps. If it is indeed a matter of controlling the speed then I must have mastered it because my bechamel is superb. It does not need to be strained for lumps, and neither does my avgolemono come to think of it. I consider this proof that I am a formidable home cook.


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

Being born and raised in France, bechamel was a staple at home. We made it at least once a week, and usually that was my job. It was considered an easy task, better left to the kids. I was never given any ratio, formula or recipe either. Just shown how to do it: melt some butter, add as much flour as the butter will absorb, cook a while, add cold milk and cook until it thickens to desired consistency (depending on the use).

I've always done the hot roux-cold milk method without even thinking that there were other ways. I've never had problems with lumps, and never sieved my sauce.

One thing, though: it's a slow method.

Now that I'm a grown up I've tried other methods, like the hot-roux-hot-milk one for example. It works just as well, but it is faster as you don't have to worry about whisking the milk as it's heating up.

I guess my experience only reinforces what Koukouvagia and BDL already said here.


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## chrisbelgium (Oct 2, 2010)

Koukouvagia said:


> If you haven't done it then you can't speak from experience, so you can't really be sure that adding hot milk to hot roux causes lumps. If it is indeed a matter of controlling the speed then I must have mastered it because my bechamel is superb. It does not need to be strained for lumps, and neither does my avgolemono come to think of it. I consider this proof that I am a formidable home cook.


I did not say that I'm "sure" it causes lumps! Here's what I said; "...When using hot milk on hot roux, there's a much bigger chance your sauce will have lumps!...".

So yes, you should consider yourself a formidable home cook /img/vbsmilies/smilies/thumb.gif.

When I said it's a basic culinary knowledge, I was refering to the simple fact that it's being taught that way in culinary schools. No more, no less.

Hang on, that's half the truth. They teach that a bechamel is either _cold milk on hot roux _or _cold roux on hot milk_. The last thing is a bit oldfashioned or let's say unknown to many; you would make a roux with butter and flour, let it dry, mostly in the oven at low temperature and when cold crumble it into hot milk. This is not beurre maniè as BDL mentions. Beurre maniè is an uncooked mixture of butter and flour, used to thicken sauces, mostly dark sauces and certainly in stews when the sauce comes out too liquid, not for making bechamel.

But let's not be too conformistic. Like to heat and infuse the milk with anything you like? Why not. Even then it's best to bring the milk shortly to a boil and let it cool (read infuse) with whatever people want to put in it to flavor the milk. Vive la révolution!


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

CHRIS.

  When I taught cullinary in the school system this was part of our course of study.

  In the Hotels years ago brown and blond  roux was made in the oven . Flour on a sheetpan till as the chef said ''smelled like roasting hazelnuts'' then it was done. It was stored in covered cans for later use. At that time it was put into hot butter and one proceeded from that point. White roux hot /cold  cold/hot principal was as you say.

The reason I strained Sauce Bechamel  was not to rid it of lumps., but to get out peppercorns, and studed onion.


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## petalsandcoco (Aug 25, 2009)

I was just wondering if anyone makes a bechamel with the onion pique ? I make it this way for certain dishes. Just curious......

Petals.


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

petalsandcoco said:


> I was just wondering if anyone makes a bechamel with the onion pique ? I make it this way for certain dishes. Just curious......
> 
> Petals.


You mean with the onion still in the milk? No. That is, I don't and haven't seen it.

BDL


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Some other things having nothing to do with Chef Petal's question.

1. My bad. I omitted the bay leaf from the _soubise. Zut alors! _

2. If you read my earlier post as equating _beurre manie_ and _roux_, you read wrong. 

3. Chris's idea that using hot milk to make a bechamel is "new school," but using cold milk is "classic," is wrong. Here's Escoffier from Recipe 28: 


> *Pour the boiling milk on the roux*, which should be almost cold, and whisk it well so as to avoid lumps. Let it boil, then cook on the side of the fire. [Preliminary steps for making a veal-infused bechamel]... [And] There is another [Lenten, meatless] way of making the sauce. After having boiled the milk, the seasoning and aromatics should be added; the saucepan is then covered and placed on a corner of the stove, so as to ensure a thorough infusion. *The boiling milk **must now be poured on to the roux* which has been separately prepared, and the sauce should then cook for one quarter of an hour only.


[Emphases added] 

The idea that cold milk is currently somehow more "academically correct," is also wrong. From Larousse's _Sauce Bible_, 


> Make a cut into the onion, about 1 inch deep, and slide the bay leaf into this slit. Stick the cloves into the onion, and place it, along with the milk and nutmeg, into a heavy-gauge, non-corrosive saucepan. Place this over medium heat.
> 
> In a separate pan, cook the butter and flour for about 5 minutes, stirring continuously, without browning, until it emits a nutty aroma. Remove from the fire. *When the milk is fairly hot, pour some into the cooled down roux*, stirring until the milk is thoroughly blended in. * Return this to the remaining [hot] milk*, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Season to taste with salt and white pepper, strain, and set aside until ready to use.


[Emphases added]

It's time to invoke the mercy rule.

BDL


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## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

I make sauce Bechamel with milk I've slightly warmed- just enough to take off the chill of the refrigerator. The milk is still cool- just not COLD. I've never had to sieve my sauce or had trouble of any kind. I use it as a Mornay sauce for macaroni and cheese. I make sauce Veloute with strained, hot poaching liquid when I make the filling for chicken pot pies for my husband or my mother-in-law.

I'm a home cook with no training other than my mom's advice (in my youth), 50+ years of cooking on my own, and reading here at Chef Talk. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/bounce.gif


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

Mezzaluna said:


> I make sauce Bechamel with milk I've slightly warmed- just enough to take off the chill of the refrigerator. The milk is still cool- just not COLD. I've never had to sieve my sauce or had trouble of any kind. I use it as a Mornay sauce for macaroni and cheese.


Mezz,

It may or may not need clarification, but I don't think anyone is saying you can't or shouldn't use cold or cool milk to make perfectly serviceable _bechamel_. I'm certainly not. My point has now become that there are a lot of good ways to do it, not just one.

The original point was to provide a response to the OP's question. For the purposes of a culinary school "sauce" test, I think the hot milk method is probably best (unless working with very small quantities) as (a) it allows the student to cook the roux and warm (and infuse, if desired) the milk simultaneously; (b) allows several minutes to be spent more profitably than standing over a pot, and whisking while the milk goes from cold to warm and warm to simmer; and (c) comes together more quickly; thus (d) making a better show for the teacher.

Paranthetically, there are also a lot of reasons to sieve. Not all of them, or even most, have to do with removing lumps. You can take a bechamel without a lump in a gallon, sieve it and make it slightly more velvety and shiny, by knocking the tiny bubbles out. Escoffier probably wouldn't bother, neither would Larousse, I wouldn't do it (how's that for presumption?), and I'm not saying you should do it -- especially for a bechamel that's moving on to Mornay or some other higher purpose. Offhand, I can't even think of a dish I'd want to sauce with a simple bechamel.

Just sayin',

BDL


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## chrisbelgium (Oct 2, 2010)

boar_d_laze said:


> ...
> 
> 3. Chris's idea that using hot milk to make a bechamel is "new school," but using cold milk is "classic," is wrong. Here's Escoffier from Recipe 28:
> 
> ...


First of all, it's not MY idea and I did not suggest it was "new school", it's -as I already mentioned in my previous post- something they teach in culinary schooIs since forever. Since you haven't read my last post, allow me to repeat myself that a classic culinary school approach for making bechamel is still; _cold milk on hot roux_ *or* _cold roux in hot milk_

You obviously Googled (what's new) a few sentences from http://www.escoffier-online.com/bechamel-sauce but sadly enough used the wrong emphasis; "...*Pour the boiling milk on the roux*, which should be almost cold ..." Maybe you now understand that your emphasis should in fact be; ...pour the boiling milk on *the roux*, *which should be almost cold*...

Same from the Larousse you quoted; ...*When the milk is fairly hot, pour some into the cooled down roux*

Ainsi soit-il?


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## petalsandcoco (Aug 25, 2009)

boar_d_laze said:


> You mean with the onion still in the milk? No. That is, I don't and haven't seen it.
> 
> BDL


When I make with the onion pique it has only one piece of clove and one bay leaf and when I make it this way it is for a chicken or fish dish. The wonderful thing about this sauce is that it is so versatile. They don't call it a basic sauce for nothing.

With it so many other sauces are made with it or from it....Sauce Albert. mushroom, duxelles, chantilly, quenelle, a la King , for gratins, the list goes on.

Petals.


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## steelybob (Dec 4, 2009)

the culinary school texts call for the onion pique (OnCooking & CIAs), but I don't care for the effect and extra time involved myself.

i agree with french fries, especially because flour can vary greatly i just roll with the use "as much as needed" technique, vs a set ratio, but i'm not making bechemel for 3000 servings at a time either.


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

In all my years I have never measured . In baking I do. because baking is a form of chemical formula where as cooking is not.  I take a half med onion 1 bay leaf nailed with 2 cloves, some white peppercorns and salt . I simmer and then strain. can use this for anything as it is a basic .


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

I use hot milk or maybe just extremely warm milk because most of the time I'm making a lot of bechamel, using either a half gallon or whole gallon of milk. But when I make small amounts for sauces and mac n' cheese I do use cold milk, put into a container and left out for a bit to take the chill out. I don't bother warming it up. So I have done it both ways and both ways work for me. With the large batches the hot milk helps speed up the stirring time.

Bechamel: it's how I got good muscles.



Mezzaluna said:


> I'm a home cook with no training other than my mom's advice (in my youth), 50+ years of cooking on my own, and reading here at Chef Talk. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/bounce.gif


Woohoo go team home cooks!


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## Apprentichef (Oct 21, 2010)

With all the bickering that's going on in here, I want to ask something. Does it work? hot-cold, cold-hot, hot-hot, cold-cold? I mean, were you satisfied with the outcome.

Honestly, this isn't international politics here. We use a roux to thicken a liquid, period. Whether you need to strain it, heat it, cool it, doesn't matter. How you choose to do it for yourself doesn't matter. There is no _right_ way versus _wrong_ way of doing it, this is cooking not a physics proof. Sure there may be bigger, better, faster ways of achieving the same result, I'm happy for you, I'd love to learn _your_ way of doing it so I have more options available to me. If you all want to go and bash on each other over the _traditional french _way of preparing a bechamel go ahead (and make a new thread please), but I think we're veering well off course of the original posters question and bordering on the edge of disrespectful here.

*MICCRU*: If your sauce is too thick add more liquid. If your sauce is too thin...well, don't let it do that, add liquid in batches, knowing proper ratios helps to.

p.s. get a scale, very important, use it constantly, it help maintain consistency throughout your cooking.

p.p.s. for those that care. I use cold milk, but that's my preference.


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## kuan (Jun 11, 2001)

Apprentichef said:


> With all the bickering that's going on in here, I want to ask something. Does it work? hot-cold, cold-hot, hot-hot, cold-cold? I mean, were you satisfied with the outcome.


Because any talk of any mother sauce will bring out the purists and diehards among us. 

Enjoy the bickering, or rather, dickering. It's all about the passion. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/licklips.gif


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

If the final product taste good to you as well as the customer, and they walk out happy thats all that counts.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

In my experience as well it's always been either cold--->hot or hot----->cold. Either the roux or the milk should be cold. 

This is what they taught in culinary school. IIRC, it has something to do with the gelatinization of the starch. If the milk is hot and the roux is hot, the hot milk can cause the starch in the flour to gelatinize quickly, so in essence, you end up with little pockets of cooked starch surrounding little balls of raw starch (other words: lumps). In effect, the starch gelatinizes and will becomes impenetrable so that the liquid will never even reach the inside of the lumps, and no amount of whisking will fix it. 

However, this does not suggest that using hot---->hot will not work, it just seems to have a lower success rate in general. 

My memory may be a little hazy since I can count on one hand the number of times I've made bechemel since leaving culinary school. 

BDL..what is the origin of your usage of the term soubise to describe the onion concoction that goes into the milk? I've always referred to it as an onion pique or studded onion. I always thought soubise was the name of a small sauce derived from bechemel using onions. Just curious.


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## boar_d_laze (Feb 13, 2008)

It's dumb for me to keep this up because it comes across as a quibble and we're well beyond answering the OP's question. But it's a burr under my saddle. Forgive me. Let me start with a note to Someday -- if any part of this seems directed at you, it isn't. Props.

I don't know how anyone can make a hard and fast generalization about what culinary schools teach unless you've been to quite a few or are, in some other way, familiar with their curricula. Johnson and Wales, for instance, recommends hot milk into very warm roux (just off the fire, butter no longer bubbling). Julia Child's recipe was straight out of the Paris LCB school and it's hot into hot. I don't have the book with me, can't find it online, but IIRC LCB still teaches hot into hot. Don't they count? Aren't Johnson and Wales and LCB real cooking schools?

There are a lot of cold/hot/warm roux/milk permutations which work for bechamel, and a very few which don't. Some are better than others for certain purposes -- like speed, quantity or convenience -- but good technique will net you a smooth and velvety sauce with most of them.

Claiming ways which actually work quite well are less theoretically correct is silly. If you tell me your way works, I accept that; but if you tell me mine can't, won't or doesn't, that's disturbing.

Someday -- I get that you're talking about your experience in cooking school and respect that. Also, you're right about soubise. I misused the term; a result of a misunderstanding from when I started cooking at an old line French restaurant in SF thirty seven years ago; a place without a lot of English in the kitchen. The misuse sticks persistently even though I know better. I can't remember trig relationships either. Or lots of other things from back then. My drug use at the time has absolutely nothing to do with it. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smoking.gif

BDL


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

Like I said as long as it comes out good. Soubise with onion and heavy cream or bechamel and Smitane wit onion and sour cream.        Smitane can also be cut or mixed with Bechamel, it is done in a few places.


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## kissingchef (Oct 14, 2011)

You didn't say anything about straining your Bechamel. Yes, if it's that thick you should add some cool water, adjust your seasoning, then strain and it will be perfect!!!


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

KissingChef said:


> Yes, if it's that thick you should add some cool water


Huh.... no you shouldn't. Not if you want to have watered down bechamel. Add milk, not water.


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## Apprentichef (Oct 21, 2010)

French Fries said:


> Huh.... no you shouldn't. Not if you want to have watered down bechamel. Add milk, not water.


Water.

This is why he said to adjust seasonings after. It's too thick because either

a) too much roux to liquid or

b) you've evaporated out the water content.

If you've already achieved the taste and texture you want, you don't go and mess with it by adding more flavored compounds.


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

Apprentichef said:


> a) too much roux to liquid or
> 
> b) you've evaporated out the water content.
> 
> If you've already achieved the taste and texture you want, you don't go and mess with it by adding more flavored compounds.


I see what you mean. So in my opinion in case a) you should add more milk, because you didn't put enough in the first place. Not more water, or you'd get a watered down bechamel. In case b) you should add more water, because you already had, at one point, the right ratio of milk to roux, but you've lost some of the milk's water.

Would you agree?


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## kissingchef (Oct 14, 2011)

Yes, that is the correct answer. No one is that silly to add so much water that it becomes watery...


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## petemccracken (Sep 18, 2008)

If you've evaporated out the water, you've ruined the bechamel, start over!


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

KissingChef said:


> Yes, that is the correct answer. No one is that silly to add so much water that it becomes watery...


But some are that silly that once their bechamel is thickened to the desired consistency they continue reducing it, therefore making the water evaporate?

I don't understand how that could happen given that you usually stay close to the pot and keep stirring.. at least that's how I do it.


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