Cream sauce

Béchamel let down with cream and reduced back. The simplest derivative and the one most often made badly, because people add the cream and stop there.

500 ml — whole milk

25 g — plain flour

25 g — butter

150 ml — double cream

5 ml — lemon juice

5 g — salt

1 pinch — white pepper

500 ml béchamel : 150 ml cream

Make the béchamel and cook it out properly — the cream will not hide raw flour, it will dilute the flavour that should be covering it.

Stir the cream in and reduce until the sauce is back where it started. Skipping this step is why cream sauce so often tastes of nothing.

Finish with a few drops of lemon off the heat. Cream flattens a sauce; the acid is what puts the edges back.