Tasty Bechamel Sauce

[YO!!!]

Bechamel Sauce:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup flour
2 1/2 cups milk
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup soft goat cheese
1 lemon, zested

For the bechamel: Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and cook, whisking constantly, until pale and smooth, 2 minutes. Still whisking constantly, add the milk and bay leaf and cook until thickened. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg and discard the bay leaf. Let the sauce cool for 5 minutes. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, goat cheese, and lemon zest and whisk into the bechamel sauce until smooth.

I used this bechamel for a moussaka and it was great.

Bobby Flay's moussaka full recipe here:
Moussaka Recipe : Bobby Flay : Recipes : Food Network


I didn't use much from his recipe except the bechamel.
I also added additional cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, & whole eggs in my sauce.

[RIHans]

From there, many sauces...

The Five "Mother" Sauces

It's all there.

[YO!!!]

From there, many sauces...

The Five "Mother" Sauces

It's all there.

So true...once you are comfortable with these basics the world is your oyster.

The first thing I learned when I moved to New Orleans was how to make a proper blonde and dark roux.
A friend's Cajun grandfather once told me the time required to make a dark roux for gumbo and such was the amount of time it took to drink 2 beers

[Janders]

Disagree!

There are 1, 2, and 3 beer roux.

This tends to correlate to blonde, "standard" (for me, the color of JIF peanut butter), and dark (chocolate). Some people like a "red" roux, which is in between the medium peanut butter and the chocolate-dark. I bet that is what your friend's grandfather cooked with... nice red roux.... that could be 2 beers if he cooked it on a hot stove.

;)

[benito]

manchego mornay:

sweat minced shallot and lemon thyme in with the roux,

then add heavy cream, and stir.

in lieu of nutmeg i like a dash (smidgen?) of smoked spanish paprika and a "full-on pinch" of ground ancho, ample lemon zest too.

add the manchego at the end and stir until it emulsifies.

eggs will never be the same.

make a white pizza with this, chorizo an pickled cherry peppers.