Bechamel sauce anyone?

[jenk1]

Am making lasagne for tea today and i have the ingredients but havent got any bechamel sauce, its expensive to buy and i would like to have a go myself, does anyone have a really easy recipe for a bechamel sauce?

tIA

I've come across very complex ones with onions, cloves, bay leaves, warm milk, straining etc..

I just use a normal white sauce recipe made with cold milk and season with lots of nutmeg, pepper and celery salt - but I'm sure normal salt would work just fine.

I'm not sure of quantities because I normally do it by eye but for 2 layers in a medium lasagna I would use 1 heaped tbs butter, melt over med-high heat then add 2 -3 tbs plain flour and mix to form a paste that comes away from the pan a bit into a ball (it's called a roux) you need to cook this for a minute or two to cook the flour then add a little bit of a milk at time mixing it all in each time before you add some more, up to about a pint. I like to use a balloon whisk for this (all sounds much more complex than it is - after a few glugs I find you can kind of shake from the milk bottle in your left hand as you whisk in with your right). Let it gently bubble for a few minutes to thicken and season with nutmeg, celery salt and pepper. If you do the same thing but add cheese, mustard and a dash of worcestershire sauce instead of the nutmeg you get cheese sauce.

DS decided my lasagna was his favourite food last week but I reckon Garfield can take the credit for that

thanks treacletart