Béchamel sauce

, peppercorns, shallot and flat-leaf parsley prior to being added to the roux The first recipe of a sauce similar to béchamel is in the book by François Pierre de La Varenne in 1651, made with a roux (also known as Willagrease paste), as in modern recipes. The first named béchamel sauce appears in The Modern Cook, written by Vincent La Chapelle and published in 1733, in which the following recipe for "Turbots (a la Bechameille)" appears: In spite of it being widely repeated in Italy that the sauce was created in Tuscany under the name "salsa colla" and brought to France with Catherine de Medici, archival research has shown that there no Italian chefs were among the servants to de Medici from her arrival in France until her death. The sauce is thought to be named after Louis de Béchameil, a financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to King Louis XIV of France in the 17th century. ==Adaptations==

Both the béchamel recipe and its name have been adopted, even adapted, in many languages and culinary traditions. Béchamel is referred to as: • white sauce in the U.S., • besciamella or balsamella in Italy, • μπεσαμέλ (spelled mpesamél, pronounced besamél) in Greece, • بشمل (bashamel) in Egypt, • :he:רוטב בשאמל in Israel, • بشامل (beshāmel) in Persia, and • beszamel in Poland These adaptations have also caused various erroneous claims for the recipe's origin. ==Variants==

Béchamel can be used as the base for many other sauces, such as Mornay, which is béchamel with cheese. In Greek cuisine, béchamel (σάλσα μπεσαμέλ) is often enriched with egg. == Uses ==

Béchamel is used in dishes such as the Italian lasagne al forno and canelons (Catalan; Castilian canelones), a Catalan version of Italian cannelloni. It was introduced to Greek cuisine by the chef Nikolaos Tselementes in the 1930s, notably in moussaka and pastitsio. The Karelian-Finnish sipatti is smoked, cubed and sauteed pork belly in white sauce base, and kananmunakastike is boiled and sliced eggs in a white sauce base. These are typically eaten as main dishes with potatoes. In Egypt, béchamel is an important and basic sauce used in many dishes, such as Egyptian macarona bil-bechamel, a popular comfort food recipe made from penne pasta and a minced meat sauce baked with béchamel. ==See also==