(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Ben, one of the chefs at Sorted Food
and today I'm gonna show you how to make cheese sauce
two different ways.
It stems from a mother sauce, bechamel,
it's a basic, you're gonna want to learn it
'cause you can use it for so many different things.
The first dish we're gonna do has got your name all over it,
Mike, kimchi mac and cheese.
- [Mike] Ah, can't wait!
- It starts with a white sauce
that we turn into a cheese sauce
and then we'll turn it into a mac and cheese
and basically, no recipe.
There's only three ingredients in this basic white sauce,
butter, flour and milk.
We're gonna start with the butter,
so into a pan over medium heat,
you're gonna add about a heaped tablespoon of butter
you can't really tablespoon a butter
but cut it off the block or the stick of butter,
so you end up with about a heaped tablespoon,
throw it in the pan.
Now you want to let that melt down, it'll begin to foam.
When it goes quiet, you're then gonna add in
the same quantity of plain flour, so a heaped tablespoon.
Now you can weigh it out and it's about 50 grammes of butter
and it's about 40 grammes of flour, fine,
but a heaped tablespoon of butter
and heaped tablespoon of flour is all you need to remember.
There we go, the butter's completely melted,
it's foaming, and that's really the key
for whenever you're cooking in butter, you want it to foam,
then you want it to sizzle a bit,
see how it's quieting down?
Scatter in the flour, and then quickly stir it into a paste.
It's still over the heat and you're just gonna stir it
until all of that flour combines into all of that butter.
And then you're gonna add milk, a little bit at a time,
every time you add some milk,
stir it again until it becomes lump free.
And eventually you're gonna add in a whole pint of milk.
So it's a heaped tablespoon of butter,
a heaped tablespoon of flour.
And then a pint of milk.
Now the initial stage,
it'll actually look like it's getting thicker
and you'll think, "How am I adding in liquid
yet it's getting thicker?"
Don't worry, that's what it's supposed to do.
But then added a little bit more.
(gentle upbeat music)
You'll see it'll go lumpy,
stir it until it's no longer lumpy and then add in more.
Some people choose to whisk a sauce,
personally, I've never bothered.
'cause if you do it this way, it's lump free anyway.
Once that's combined, do a little more.
This whole time, you're over a gentle medium heat.
Now this is not how I was taught to make a white sauce
or a bechamel,
typically, the milk would be warm when you add it.
Typically, you would have infused the milk in a pan
with flavours like an onion that you've studded with cloves,
maybe a couple of bay leaves,
it gives the milk flavour that you're adding to the sauce.
That's the classic version.
And if you're doing it just as a white sauce,
maybe for layers in a lasagna, then yes,
add the extra flavour.
For me, midweek, I don't bother, I use the milk cold,
I don't bother to infuse it
'cause we're adding flavours later on.
Now you can see it's nice and smooth.
Once it starts to become more liquid,
you don't wanna add too much more
until that has come to a bubble.
So you wanna heat it to a bubble, then add in more.
At first, you do very small amounts.
When you get towards the end,
you can do bigger amounts until that entire pint is in.
You do wanna keep stirring it to make sure it doesn't stick
on the bottom, but once all the milk is added,
you're then going to let it very gently simmer
while you carry on stirring for another couple of minutes.
And one last thing to add,
one of your favourite words, Mike,
if you don't wanna use milk, use stock,
veg stock, fish stock, chicken stock,
and what you end up with, exactly the same method,
heaped tablespoon of butter,
heaped tablespoon of flour, pint of stock, a velouté.
And that can be the basis to chicken pot pie,
that can be the basis to fish pie,
you can make so many different dishes with this same method.
- [Mike] I'm a chef and this is my velouté.
- Once it's been gently simmering for a couple of minutes,
you want to season it.
If you're keeping it as a white sauce,
salt, pepper and a little grating of nutmeg is traditional
and delicious.
We're gonna leave the nutmeg out
because we're gonna divide this basic white sauce into two
and I'm gonna show you how to make
two different cheese sauces with two different uses.
Purists would say white pepper so you don't spoil the sauce,
but I use what I have and don't give a monkey's.
Genuinely, this is how I make a white sauce
which I can then turn into a cheese sauce at home.
This method it's not traditional, but it is awesome
and it will work,
you don't even have to put the chefs jacket on to do it.
- [Mike] Thank goodness for that!
'Cause I care about how I look.
- Oi!
I quite like this rendition of a chef's jacket.
- [Mike] That was unnecessarily mean from me,
I apologise, mate, sorry.
- These quantities obviously make you a pint of white sauce,
which you then turned into cheese sauce.
That would be enough for four portions
of the two dishes we're making.
If it's a side dish or a light lunch
or two portions if it's a meal.
How'd you know when it's ready?
Well one, the consistency,
you should be able to draw a line
through the back of a spoon and it hold that line.
That's the kinda consistency you're looking for.
And then taste it and make sure it's A, seasoned
and B, not chalky or floury, should be smooth and silky
and absolutely delicious.
Which that is.
For cheese sauce, obviously you want cheese
and it should be a real cheesy cheese so get lots of flavour.
For this first one, I'm gonna use the cheddar,
a mature cheddar and in terms of quantity,
you want about three times as much sauce to grated cheese,
so 3:1 as a ratio.
If you go one to one like super, super cheesy,
it'll be really thick and you can let it cool down
and you can spread it on toast
and that becomes Welsh rarebit.
Over the gentlest of heat,
you're gonna stir through your grated cheese
until it's all smooth.
Once the cheese has melted into the sauce,
then you can add your flavour, fresh herbs,
you could add some pesto in there,
we're going for chopped up kimchi,
so a nice crunchy kimchi, stir that through.
Just watch the colour that that turns this amazing sauce.
- [Mike] Mmm.
- So kimchi is a South Korean cabbage dish
that's full of kind of chilli and is fermented,
so it's tangy as well.
And I think that combo of kimchi and cheese
was really made famous in LA several years ago
in the street food trend,
kind of Mexican and Korean food combined,
that is why this just works so well.
To turn it into a mac and cheese,
I've just got pasta which we've just boiled,
still slightly al dente
'cause it is gonna go through the oven. And stir that in.
Yes!
This is happy food.
So easy.
Yes, I know, this isn't even macaroni pasta
in a mac and cheese,
but use whatever pasta you have in your staples cupboard,
finish it with a little bit of cheese
and then into a hot oven, as hot as you can
or under a grill, you just want to colour it.
The second dish, one of the Internet's favourite,
one of my favourite dishes, cauliflower cheese.
Exactly the same white sauce before,
obviously I've already got half a batch that I saved,
into that instead of cheddar, I'm gonna add blue cheese,
a blue cheese cauliflower cheese, unreal.
And exactly the same ratios before, 3:1,
three times as much sauce to cheese,
it's a strong blue cheese, crumble it in
and stir it in until it melts, job done.
Blue cheese isn't for everyone,
personally, I love it in a sauce like this,
but you use whatever cheese you either have
or that you love,
smoked cheese is really good in a cheese sauce.
I'm saving you all the boring bits, just like the pasta,
I have boiled the cauliflower florets in salted water
until just cooked and al dente, then I've drained them,
I'm gonna pour the sauce over the top
and finish it with a crumb of breadcrumbs and almonds.
And if that doesn't make you go wobbly at the knees,
I dunno what will.
Into an oven.
There we go, two ways with cheese sauce,
the kind of food that I love to cook midweek at home.
Pair either of these with a crisp salad
or some sautéed green veg and you've got a wholesome meal
and obviously mix up the flavours, mix up the cheese,
mix up the pasta shapes,
mix up the additional flavours,
put it over other veg other than just cauliflower,
make it your own.
And if you want to give this new skill a go,
then right now, over on our meal packs app,
there is a hybrid of the two,
it is a one pot cauliflower mac and cheese,
along with other recipes this week in your meal pack,
you can go and give it a go,
you have tasty food, you'll save money on your shopping
and it's free for a month.
Go on, go check it out.
Ready for the second best part of this video?
We all know the first part was the bubbling cheese.
- [Mike] Yeah, that's so true.
Do you know, I know what kimchi mac and cheese tastes like
and it's amazing.
I'd like to try your blue cheese cauli.
- [Ben] I'm not gonna lie,
there's healthier ways to eat veg
but I don't think there's many that are tastier.
- [Mike] (laughs) Great point.
Oh, wow.