Tiptopf Reader Fury

[Tom1234]

@Bowlie

White sauce, also known as béchamel sauce, is a classic creamy sauce made from a roux of equal parts butter and flour, combined with milk. It serves as a versatile base for many dishes like lasagna, macaroni and cheese, chicken pot pie, and can be adapted into other sauces by adding ingredients like cheese or onions.

Thin has more milk, Thick has more flour.

Thanks. I had absolutely no idea.

[Axa]

@Tom1234

Thanks. I had absolutely no idea.

If you eat something in France, it will eventually show up in the table.

[curley]

at boarding school it also served to drown all kinds of overcooked veggies in. I deleted béchamel sauce from my life. Might be unfair on the other hand, as you said, it’s flour, butter and milk, not much to miss.

[Carlasmom]

They’re the same book. Croqu’menus is a French translation of the German book.

I

[Tom1234]

@Axa

If you eat something in France, it will eventually show up in the table.

Thanks. Good to know.

Is this it:

[Axa]

Almost! The fast food version:

[Slammer]

And if you lightly burn the flour in the butter you get brown sauces.

[Ace]

@Tom1234

Thanks. I had absolutely no idea.

One or two replies seemed to have missed your (I presume?) sarcasm, I have met quite a few people though who would always use a pre-made sauce out of a packet in order to avoid making their own, so clearly some people don’t find it as easy as all that. To me it’s so simple I’d thin a packet version likely to take longer and need more work to adapt to whatever it’s being used for than doing it from scratch, but maybe that’s just me.

Personally I’d think the cookery course idea a great present, but if, as has been suggested, every Swiss 20-y-o has already done all that sort of basic stuff in school then yeah, maybe not so good.

[BelgianMum]

I’ve always just made a roux with flour and butter then added milk until it reached the consistency I needed for whatever dish I’m making.
I can’t think of anything that I would make which would require a thin bechemel sauce.

[curley]

Just checked as I wondered too. Apparently it’s the base for a variety of sauces.

Scrolling down to “Ableitungen der Sauce Béchamel” on here it gives you some ideas. In German. Or search the subject in English.
As such, could be interesting actually, might try that some time.

[Bowlie]

A thin white sauce, made with reduced butter and flour (about 1 tablespoon each) and milk, is used primarily for casseroles containing pasta, gravies, or cream soups that aren’t too thick. It adds a creamy texture to dishes like cream soups, stews, and lighter casseroles without being too heavy or thick. This versatile sauce serves as a base for many recipes such as chicken pot pie, scalloped potatoes, and can be adapted into cheese sauce or mustard sauce variations

[bluntside]

It is one of the five mother sauces

What are the five mother sauces of classical cuisine?

[bossybaby]

I wouldn’t want to try lasagne without it.

[Izzy_the_busy_bee]

i have become very lazy, and substitute the bechamel by cream in which i have diluted a little bit of maizena everybody says 'oh! how rich is your lasagne!

btw, I am mesmerized… in my country, cooking is shown to kids by mothers or (in my case) grandmothers…and, of course, for BBQs and the alike, by the fathers…

[ShirleyNot]

@Izzy_the_busy_bee

cooking is shown to kids by mothers or (in my case) grandmothers

That seems to be true here, too. In my MIL’s day they went on residential courses to learn [shudders] “how to be a housewife” (mid1960s in her case). Don’t know how widespread that was, though. MIL is a decent cook and is often trying something new.

[Phil_MCR]

@ShirleyNot

[shudders] “how to be a housewife”

Shudders? I think we need a bit more of that today!

[Bowlie]

My mother had a bachelors degree in home economics. Early 1950s. But as a single mother didn’t have the time to reach my brother and I how to cook. My sister learned a little from her and turned into a wonderful cook when she became a housewife. She’s celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary next weekend.

[Tom1234]

My worst cooking experience ever was making macaroni cheese for about sixty people.
These were children from the Chernobyl region of the USSR who were on a charity-organised vacation in the UK not long after the disaster.

The problem with cooking something for so many people is that, with the quantities involved, you need to scale the time as well and the roux probably needed ten to fifteen minutes to cook at least before adding industrial quantities of milk.
I didn’t leave it long enough and the end dish had that slightly floury taste and none of the children ate much of it.

I learnt an important cooking lesson that day about cooking times.

[greenmount]

@Tom1234

I wasn’t intending to knock the teaching of cooking in schools with simple recipes and the basics but this is a thread split and my original answer was to show my disdain at the suggestion that a course for a twenty-year old man teaching Tiptopf style basics was a suitable present, and I offered an alternative.

I don’t think people were thinking of school-like courses though.

And they’re not that bad after all, my kids are able to put something on the table when needed.
We don’t really ask much from them other than study. They do some house chores of course but I think it was good the school chipped in too.
(btw, I didn’t learn to cook from my mom either, I learned the practical skills from my grandparents - about food, plants, animals etc)

[bluntside]

After my mother died, my father, who couldn’t boil an egg, needed to up his game. Cookery classes were suggested, and he decided to go for it.

“So what did you learn”, i asked.

“Well, i can make a bechamel sauce, velouté, espagnol, tomato and Hollandaise.”

“Anything to go with the sauces?”

“I made a mistake and signed up for the sauces classes.”

He did sign up for the other course as well and ended up cooking really well. His sauces were to die for.