Bechamel Sauce (EDC) Help Please

[cathy79]

Seems that lots of people use the bechamel sauce from EDC - are there any tricks?  Just made a lasanga using this sauce, and the sauce is very floury and runny.  I probably should have cooked it a bit more but there were good reviews for the recipe, so went with it.

Have I done something wrong or is there a tweak out there that I've overlooked?

[judydawn]

Cathy, I use cornflour instead of flour and following on from a tweak from Harmony, now use 50g butter instead of 30g. It is perfect.

[Thermomixer]

Cooking a bit longer helps get the floury taste out of it - I sometimes heat the butter and then add the flour and let it cook for a few seconds before adding the milk.  But the EDC recipe is all about simplicity.

Just cook a bit longer.

[cathy79]

I've since remade this with JD's tip of 50g butter (so equal butter & flour) and turned out much better.

[judydawn]

Isn't it great, sharing tips passed from one person to another. I always make a note of other people's tips on recipes I use or plan to use as you can't always put your finger on them here on the forum.  You should see my recipe books -  very messy. Cathy does the right thing - if she has a problem she asks for some advice on it.  In my early TMX days, I tried something once and if it wasn't successful, then that was it, didn't try it again. Good on you Cathy.

[cathy79]

Thanks Judy.  I really appreciate all the help on this forum - that's what encourages me to try things again if they are not quite right first go.  I hope this tweak has been sent to Tenina for the next book.

[judydawn]

Good idea.  I haven't and I don't know if Harmony has either. Guess it wouldn't hurt to send it again just in case aye? I'll do it right now.

[faffa_70]

AND when someone asks the question it jolts the memory bank for the rest of us when we do go to use that recipe again (some of us haven't been organised and written their books lol) otherwise there could also be new tweaks that are just waiting for a chance to be added to the forum as well 

[alioop]

Isn't it great, sharing tips passed from one person to another. I always make a note of other people's tips on recipes I use or plan to use as you can't always put your finger on them here on the forum.  You should see my recipe books -  very messy.

I agree - when I first got my machine, I went through the forum recipe reviews and threads with EDC in hand and wrote all the changes in my book as I went - have had very few failures as a result  - thanks all 

[Chelsea (Thermie Groupie)]

I can't remember if anyone has mentioned this on the forum, but when I make this sauce for lasagne I make one and a half batches instead of a double batch.  I find a double batch is always too much for one lasagne and a single batch isn't enough.

This is my method:

Place the following ingredients in the TMX bowl and cook for 10 minutes, at 90^o, speed 4:
750g milk
75g flour/corn flour
75g butter
3/4 tsp salt
pinch nutmeg
 

[cathy79]

Chelsea, that's great.  I remember now that there was a bit much cheese sauce in the last lasagna I made.  I'll note this in my book.

[judydawn]

You are right Chelsea, double is far too much.  I actually only make a single batch and make that do as DH isn't too keen on a large amount of this sauce between the layers.  Any left-over sauce can be frozen successfully - once thawed, it may just need to have a bit more milk added and blitzed with some cheese to turn it into a cheese sauce for cauli etc.