On Sat, 22 Oct 2016 11:33:59 -0700 (PDT), dsi1 >
wrote:

>On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 12:58:37 AM UTC-10, Alan Holbrook wrote:
>> Every once in a while, when I get the feeling that my arteries are still
>> too flexible and my heart isn't working hard enough pumping blood, I'll
>> make a large skillet of sawmill gravy and pour it over biscuits for
>> breakfast. The recipe I follow says, as do all the other recipes I've seen
>> that involve making a white sauce, that once you have the roux the color
>> you want, you should take the pan off the heat to add the milk. I've often
>> wondered why that is and what would happen if you added the milk directly
>> to the pan containing the roux while it's still on the burner. Rather than
>> risk seven years' bad luck or something similar trying it, I thought I'd
>> ask. Can any of the RFC intelligentsia enlighten me?
>
>I'm not going to tell you how to make white sauce - that's a personal choice. OTOH, being able to make a white sauce should be a requirement for graduation from high school.

For your entertainment, I will now tell you how my sister-in-law makes
cheese sauce.

For best results, get half wasted before beginning.

Get the smallest saucepan you own - I think the one she uses is two
cups - and fill it up with cold milk. Add a couple spoons of
cornstarch and stir. This is the "bechamel" part. The only time she
makes this is when she needs cheese sauce for broccoli. So she grates
some cheap mild cheddar and adds this to the pot of cold milk. There
is no salt in this, because salt is Bad For You. Then she turns the
stove on low and waits for it to get hot, stirring a few times while
it's warming up. When the whole thing boils over and gets all over the
stove, it's done.

Doris