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Using onions from bechamel sauce to carmelize

post #1 of 10
3/14/09 at 3:02pm
Thread Starter 
I'm making a lasagna tomorrow for dinner, and I'm using a bechamel sauce with it. I also wanted to make a foccacia with caramelized onion and sun dried tomato to go with it. What I'm wondering is, if I can use the onion from the bechamel that you normally throw out to caramelize for the foccacia afterward? Or would too much of the flavor of the onion be used in the bechamel to have a good flavor still for caramelizing?
I might go ahead and give it a shot anyways, but I wondered your opinions too.
Thanks!
*Food*

I am the Mad Baker Woman
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post #2 of 10
3/14/09 at 3:16pm
chuck 'em and don't look back.

the heat & liquids will have done their thing - also you'd have to do a thorough rise/wash to get rid of the sauce.

onions are just not that expensive to risk the dish on.....
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post #3 of 10
3/14/09 at 9:13pm
What Dillbert said. Like the carrots and celery you simmer in stock for a bazillion hours, they've done their duty. As an aside, I wonder if they'd be any good for baby food? Never had any kids, so what do I know?

Start fresh for the foccacia onions.

mjb.
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post #4 of 10
3/15/09 at 11:34am
Bechamel has onions in it?? Am I missing something?
In a nutshell
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post #5 of 10
3/15/09 at 12:03pm
Usually a clove studded onion, and some choose to cut a slit for their bay leaf as well.
The CIA's: The Professional Chef recipe for bechamel has minced onion, which strikes me as odd for a culinary school text. I would've thought they would use the classic preparation.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
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post #6 of 10
3/15/09 at 12:44pm
The correct version does, as well as bay leaf, clove salt white pepper.
CHEFED
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post #7 of 10
3/15/09 at 12:46pm
It keeps the kids busy diceing onions for 40 grand a year! :D
CHEFED
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post #8 of 10
3/16/09 at 1:23am
I've sometimes put some finely chopped onion to sautee in the butter before adding the flour, just because it seemed to make sense in the particular recipe (like for string beans) (never saw it in a recipe though) but it sounds like you mean a whole onion, if it's studded with cloves and slit for a piece of bay.
So what do you do with it, sautee it, or heat it with the milk? let it sit to infuse the flavor? cook it with the bechamel as you stir it? (That sounds uncomfortable)
I never saw a recipe with a whole onion in it.
Italian bechamel almost always uses nutmeg rather than clove. (As do mashed potatoes).
"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #9 of 10
3/16/09 at 4:06am
So what is the "correct" bechamel.
In a nutshell
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post #10 of 10
3/16/09 at 5:37am
I go by Guide Culinaire or Escoffier cook book, thats my bible.:bounce:
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