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Maria Rundell's Bechamel or White Sauce

Maria Rundell's Bechamel or White Sauce is a traditional British recipe, based on Maria Rundell's recipe of 1806 for a white Bechamel sauce made from a veal and ham base and finished with stock and cream thickened with a roux. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Maria Rundell's Bechamel or White Sauce.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

50 minutes

Total Time:

70 minutes

Makes:

1l

Rating:

Tags : British Recipes

This is the sauce that Maria Rundell refers to as 'white gravy' throughout her book, the 1806 Domestic Cookery. As it's such a key sauce in so many of the recipes in the book I'm making it available here.

Original Recipe

Bechamel, or white Sauce.

Cut lean veal insto small slices, and the same quantity of lean bacon or ham: put them into a stew-pan with a good piece of butter, an onion, a blade of mace, a few mushroom buttons, a bit of theye, and a bay-leaf; fry the whole over a very slow fire, but do not brown it; thicken it with flour; them put an equal quiantity of good broth, and rich cream; let it boil half and hour, and stir it all the time; strain it ghrough a soup-strainer.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

300g veal, cut into thin slices
300g lean bacon or ham
6 tbsp butter
1 onion, sliced thinly
1 blade of made
6 button mushrooms, sliced
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp flour
250ml good quality stock (vegetable, meat or fish; needs to be light in colour)
250ml double cream
salt, to taste

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan over low heat. Once melted add the meats, onion and mushrooms. Fry for 5 minutes then add the mace, thyme and bay leaf.

Continue frying for about 10 minutes, until the onion shave softened. Scatter over the flour and stir to combine. Cook, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes, so the flour is no longer raw.

Now whisk in the stock and the cream. Bring the mixture to a simmer, cover the pan and cook gently for 30 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning to taste.

Strain through a fine-meshed sieve and use the liquid as your 'white gravy'.