White Sauce

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed saucepan (about 20cm)
• •Small saucepan for warming the milk
• •Wooden spoon
• •Balloon whisk
• •Nutmeg grater or fine microplane

Instructions

1. 1

   Warm the milk

   Pour the milk into a small saucepan and set it over a low heat. You're not boiling it, just taking the chill off. Warm milk makes for a smoother sauce because it meets the hot roux without shocking it into lumps. If you want to infuse it, drop in a bay leaf, a few peppercorns, and a quarter onion, and let it sit on the gentlest heat for ten minutes while you get on with the roux. Then strain it before using.

   The infusion is optional but worth it if the sauce is going into something quiet like fish pie or parsley sauce, where every small thing carries.
2. 2

   Make the roux

   Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium-low heat. Let it foam gently without browning. Tip the flour in all at once and stir with a wooden spoon. It will look like a thick paste at first, then loosen into something the texture of wet sand. Keep stirring. After a minute or two the smell changes. The raw flour note disappears and something warmer takes its place, biscuity, almost toasted. That's when you know the roux is cooked. Don't let it colour. This is a white sauce, not a brown one.

   Trust your nose. The raw flour smell is sharp and faintly chalky. The cooked smell is soft and warm, like shortbread. You can't miss the difference once you've noticed it once.
3. 3

   Add the milk gradually

   Take the pan off the heat for a moment. Pour in a small splash of the warm milk and stir hard. The sauce will seize and stiffen and look briefly like it's gone wrong. Keep going. Add another splash, stir it in completely, then another. With each addition the sauce loosens. Once about a third of the milk is in, return the pan to a medium heat and add the rest in a steadier stream, whisking as you go. Any lumps at this stage mean you added too much milk too fast. Slow down, whisk harder, and they'll usually work themselves out.

4. 4

   Simmer and thicken

   Bring the sauce to a gentle simmer, whisking often. It will thicken as it heats, going from thin and pale to something that coats the back of a spoon. Turn the heat down and let it cook for another three or four minutes. You're cooking out any last trace of raw flour and giving the sauce time to come into itself. Stir often so nothing catches on the bottom of the pan. The surface should be satin and glossy, not matte or grainy.

5. 5

   Season and finish

   Take the pan off the heat. Season with salt and white pepper. Grate fresh nutmeg over the top, more than you think, then taste. A white sauce without nutmeg is just wet flour. If it's thicker than you want, loosen it with a splash more warm milk. If it's thinner than you want, let it simmer another minute. Season and taste. Then taste again. Trust your nose. It knows before you do.

   Always grate nutmeg fresh. The pre-ground stuff in jars has given up long before it reaches your kitchen. A whole nutmeg and a small grater cost almost nothing and last for years.

Chef Tips

• •Warm milk, hot roux, slow pour. That's the whole trick. Cold milk into a hot roux is how you end up with lumps and a sauce that tastes of paste. Take the extra five minutes to warm the milk and you'll save yourself the trouble later.
• •This is the base recipe, not the finished one. From here you can make a cheese sauce by stirring in 100g of grated strong cheddar off the heat, a parsley sauce with a large handful of chopped parsley, or a mornay with cheese and a scrape of English mustard. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. Start here, then go where the week takes you.
• •If you get lumps despite your best efforts, don't panic. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve or give it a quick blitz with a stick blender. Nobody will ever know. Some of the smoothest white sauces in Britain have been rescued this way.

Advance Preparation

• •The sauce can be made a few hours ahead. Press a piece of buttered parchment or cling film directly onto the surface to stop a skin forming, and reheat gently on a low heat, whisking in a splash more warm milk to loosen it back to the right consistency.
• •Keeps in the fridge for two to three days in a covered container. Reheat slowly and whisk well. It will almost always need a little more milk to come back to itself.
• •Does not freeze well. The texture breaks and goes grainy on defrosting. Better to make it fresh when you need it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 155g)