Method

Put butter in a saucepan on a medium heat and when it starts to foam, add the flour.

Stir it with a wooden spoon. All that matters is that all of the flour is combined with the fat otherwise you’ll get lumps.

You really don’t want uncooked flour so when it’s all combined start adding the liquid slowly. It will turn into more of a paste than something that looks like pastry and you can use this phase to cook the flour out.

Keep adding the liquid in small batches (they can get bigger as you go along) stirring as you go. When all of the stock is in then let it gently bubble for a few minutes so you know the flour is cooked

That’s it!

Ingredients

• 40g butter
• 40g plain flour
• Half pint stock (see variations)

Variations

Endless. You could do Thai flavoured with lime leaves and lemongrass; a bit of basil and lemon; simply garlic and, say, rosemary. Think of a flavour and add it!

Great one for seafood; use fish stock that you’ve heated and added a pinch of saffron to. Let it steep for about 10 minutes. Add a bit of white wine, a finely chopped shallot and white pepper.

Sauce Bercy (the same but without the saffron and with chopped parsley added)

Sauce Aurore (“Dawn” because it goes a lovely pink colour); Add a tablespoon of tomato puree

Sauce Allemande (German); lemon juice, egg yolks and cream. I don’t know why you would but there you go

Sauce Polonaise (Polish); horseradish, lemon juice and sour cream. That would be amazing with anything smoked.

Sauce Hongrois (Hungarian); paprika and white wine