Basic White Sauce

Source & History

This one of the few things that I remember from Home Economics classes at high school - how to make white sauce. I hated those classes - mostly because of the teacher. Whenever I visualised Professor Dolores Umbridge when I was reading the Harry Potter books, my high school home economics teacher was the person I saw.

Notes

• the rules for white sauce are: the basic measurement is 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp butter & 1 cup of milk. The thicker you want the sauce, the more flour & butter per cup of milk, always keeping the quantities of flour & butter equal.
• I discovered recently that you can substitute a light olive oil for the butter and the sauce is still fine.
• You can make this much more easily in the microwave

1. Melt the butter, stir in flour & seasonings, heat on high 1 minute.
2. Add milk, heat on medium until the sauce thickens, stirring with a whisk every couple of minutes

• To make this into cheese sauce [for cauliflower, broccoli & to use in lasagna], after the mixture has thickened just remove from the heat and stir in a handful of grated cheese. The heat of the sauce will melt the cheese while you stir.
• If you are making this on the stove, stir continually or it will go lumpy and there is nothing worse than lumpy white sauce.