Try making your roux in the microwave using olive oil and flour, in about a
2/3 oil to 1 part flour. Microwave this on a 3 or so setting. Any oil picks
up MW radiation far more than other ingredients.
Then add heated milk and whisk. Heat more and whisk. Then heat a bit more
and whisk.
There you have it, your bechamel.
Recently doing this I made the best crab newberg I've ever had, and nothing
made it to the stove top. I couldn't believe it. We get live Dungeness Crab
here, steam it, eat what you can, then make crab stock, and make crab
newberg from the leftover, if you can imagine there being any.
Kent

"Dee Randall" > wrote in message
...
> I've never made a bechamel that I would consider exceptional or even
> acceptable (for me). Today I tried a different tactic.
>
> I was going to have a different meal altogether but when I looked in the
> frig there was 3 cups of cream and some brown crimini mushrooms. The
> cream was 8 days out of date, but still acceptable, and the mushrooms
> might have been if-y when I bought them (in a cellophane pack).
>
> I cleaned up the mushrooms to where they didn't smell too amoniac and
> fried them. While they were frying I got out and compared Giada's and
> Mario's bechamel sauce and found that Mario's recipe fit my 3 cups of
> cream (without calculating the difference of Giada's 4 cups' recipe).
> Both called for milk - not cream. I didn't care because I've never made a
> fit bechamel so far -- always lumpy and spending more time with lumps
> than the cooking!
>
> I heated the cream in the microwave slowly to about 160º while I heated
> the 5 T butter (both recipes called for the same amount of butter) and
> then sprinkled 1/3 cup flour into it. Giada' recipe said to cook 2
> minutes, Mario's said to cook 6-7 minutes. I cooked until starting to
> turn a little brownish, as Mario said, maybe about 4 minutes. DH poured
> the hot cream into the butter/flour mixture 1 cup at a time while I
> whisked. It was very thick; I would assume mainly due to cream instead of
> milk. I added 1/2 the amount of salt and nutmeg called for, and it still
> was pretty pungent with salt & nutmeg. NO LUMPS!
>
> Then I added the finished mushrooms and the spaghetti to the big pan of
> bechamel and used tongs to separate them as they cooked. This really
> tasted like carbonara.
>
> I saved the rest of the bechamel (in the freezer) for another day.
> Necessity was the mother of invention as I rescued the mushrooms and the
> rest of the cream that I had bought to make chocolate truffles.
>
> Served with 'organic' fresh carrots, salt & pepper; butter lettuce with
> oil and vinegar and a glass of wine, French for DH; Italian for me.
>
> It's now snack time and a movie -- thanks TJ's for salza and chips - as
> they say, "Good to go."
> Dee Dee
>
>
>
>