Besciamella: cheese sauce

I just ate this for breakfast, and it was really good! I didn’t make it for breakfast, but you know, it was there and I was hungry…

All it is is broccoli which was blanched very quickly in salted water until cooked but quite crisp. I then made a light besciamella using only 1 tablespoon of flour, then when it was done I added 3 dashes of Tabasco and 1 ounce of grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Voila! Salsa Parmigiana. The Tabasco doesn’t make it hot, it just opens the flavors of mildly seasoned things and makes them better.

You can use any cheese you want that will melt into the besciamella, and cheddar is most common in the USA. It’s so rare in Italy that expats report cheddar sightings like New Mexicans report UFOs. Not to worry, though. It’s good and very useful with other cheeses. Cauliflower Cheese is made like this and that is to date the single most reported childhood favorite food of British friends. Almost every vegetable can be prepared with a cheese sauce, and that may be the best way to get very small people to try their vegetables.

I only ate part of this dish, so tomorrow I will put it into a small ovenproof dish, grate more Parmigiano over it and then bake it just until browned on top. It will then look like all the other browned caseroles I post, so you might be forgiven for thinking that I have only photographed one casserole and keep re-publishing the Photo saying it is other things. It’s tempting.