Fun Stuff > CHATTER
A Cooking Thread?
Barmymoo:
I have enough packet mixes (the packets of spices etc that you add to actual food when you're too lazy/poor/single to justify making your own spice mixes) for a month of meals, and probably other than the fresh veg enough food to make them up. My freezer is stuffed with food that was on special offer and basically I should not need to spend more than £10 a week on food until the new year.
This is good because I still have £1200 less than I need to pay my rent...
bainidhe_dub:
Question for people who know how to do these things: Last night I made scalloped potatoes and something went wrong with the sauce. The directions said:
"In a medium-size saucepan, melt 1.5T butter over medium heat. Mix in 1.5T flour and 1/4t salt, and stir constantly with a whisk for one minute. Stir in 1c milk. Cook until mixture has thickened. Stir in 3/4c cheese all at once, and continue stirring until melted, about 30 to 60 seconds."
There's no mention of how long it should take to thicken after adding the milk, so I gave it about 5 minutes, maybe more like 10? (I had second thoughts about the amount of onion and was fishing it out of the casserole dish with one hand while stirring with the other.) There was absolutely zero sign of thickening, just a tan layer forming on top - the butter, I guess? So I went ahead and added the cheese (from a bag of shredded, not off a block, so this may also be part of the problem) which melted but took more than 30-60 seconds and didn't seem to really dissolve and "become one with" the not-thickened milk.
So given that description maybe it's no shock that what I ended up with was potato slices in melted butter and melted cheese. It still smelled & tasted right, but the consistency was not right. Where did I screw it up?
Barmymoo:
Did you add the flour all at once, or bit by bit? I think you add it slowly and mix it in, then add a bit more.
bainidhe_dub:
I had the flour and salt measured into a cup and dumped it in all at once when the butter was completely melted. It mixed up into a light brown goo.
What's weird is this is completely the opposite experience from the couple times I've tried to make bechamel sauce - those basically turned into thick paste no matter what I did.
pwhodges:
The key word to look up for explanation is roux. You can combine the flour into the melted fat all at once - this is not a problem*. You can then cook it a little before starting to add liquid. The liquid should then be added slowly, incorporating each addition before moving on to the next, otherwise you get lumpiness (and the lumps reduce the overall thickening effect, by concentrating it). It is very hard to get the same effect just by whisking, and I wouldn't do it that way. Similarly, you must heat slowly enough that your stirring can keep ahead of the tendency for the thickening mixture to form lumps.
Basically, it's a knack which you will just get the hang of in time. Oh, and flours do vary somewhat in their thickening power as well.
* It is difficult to mix flour directly into water - this can be achieved by adding it extremely slowly, while stirring vigorously or preferably whisking. Going the roux route is far preferable.
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