Speaking of Jeopardy 853Kids are 13-17, you said. Hm. I'm almost 60, so some of the stuff I'd come up with may be far out of date for them. Anyway, here are some. Traditions...
Me wrote on 04 Dec 2005 in rec.food.cooking
The longer-darker you cook the roux (flour and butter) the less it will thicken. Idealy you just want to just cook out the raw flour taste... Perhaps you aren't bringing the milk to a simmer for long enough or you aren't stiring the roux enough or your flour isn't plain flour(such as whole wheat or self riasing) or you're using a margerine which has too much water in it...I use plain All Purpose flour and salted butter. The true recipe for the mother sauce is 2 tbsp of flour and 2 tbsp butter for every 1 cup of milk (the standard medium thickness white mother sauce recipe). To that you can whatever you need to get various other sauces...Google white sauce for better info than I can supply.
I put my butter in the saucepan and let it melt (over med. heat) then add the AP flour, stir it around untill the flour and butter make a paste about 1-2 minutes. This coats all the flour granules in fat (stops lumps) and also cooks out the raw flour taste. I then stir in the milk (to blend the roux and milk well) and allow it to come up to a boil (not a rolling boil). Then while stiring; reduce temp slightly to allow true simmering. When the sauce has thickened I remove it from heat and stir in the cheese a bit at a time (till it melts then add more), a pinch of salt, dry mustard powder and cayanne pepper. I hear nutmeg works well in this too. I usually use a cheapy supermarket grade of cheddar. On ocbuttion I mix several types of cheeses for better taste.
dinner tonight 852Avgolemono soup with salad(romaine, cucumber, carrot, parsley, tomato) I used to use Jeff Smith's recipe, but I am glad I tried...
I don't think mine is grainy.
-- The eyes are the mirrors.... But the ears...Ah the ears. The ears keep the hat up.
