So we made our basic white sauce last week and then cheesed it up for our lasagne. Gorgeous. Lovely. How about those of us who cannot eat butter, milk or flour??? Hmmm? Well, this one is for us. A basic white sauce, a bechamel, that people with dairy and gluten intolerances can enjoy.
Firstly, we are going to approach this sauce very differently from the way we made our classic white sauce. There we made a roux (flour and butter) and cooked it out before we added our milk. Here we are using almond milk, in this particular incidence my own home made almond milk, and almond milk, especially home made versions, split very easily if too much heat is added, so it will not work in this situation.
We are also using some cold pressed, very nutritious oils, both of which can be oxidised by direct heat, we don’t want this, it turns something that is beneficial to our health into something that is very bad for our health in a careless instant.
So, we are going to be gentle with this sauce and use a low heat and our pastry chef’s delicate touch. Ready? Okay, here we go.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons tapioca starch
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon avocado oil
300ml almond milk
Firstly we are going to make a beurre manie, that is a fancy French way of saying a starchy, fatty slurry or paste. Place the starch and the oils in a small bowl, stir until smooth, like this -
Put the milk into a small pot, heat VERY GENTLY until it is steaming, stir in the beurre manie, now stir, stir, stir, never leave a white sauce still, that was true of our classic white sauce and it is true of this one. It will do this -
Don’t freak out, keep stirring, it will thicken and when it starts to get quite thick and starts to boil, snatch it off the heat and keep stirring until it settles and looks like this -
Season to taste and there you go, a basic white sauce to use however you would usually use a classic white sauce. Enjoy, food intolerant Cookie House cousins.