For what it's worth, I usually only make a roux for my cheese sauce, which I only really make for my version of cauliflower cheese. It's very simple. I use 1 oz, flour and 1oz, butter. Melt the butter, add in the flour and 'cook out' over a low heat for a few minutes. I add 1 good teaspoon of 'made' English mustard, though the dry stuff also works.
A good dose of freshly ground black pepper comes next. Purists may want to use white pepper to avoid little black flecks in the sauce, but that doesn't bother me, so long as the black flecks aren't bugs...
Next, stir in the milk with a whisk and start heating carefully. Stir continuously with the whisk. As soon as the sauce thickens and starts gently bubbling, I add the cheese. Usually 6.oz of grated mature cheddar. Meanwhile I've prepped, boiled and properly drained a decent sized cauliflower.. including the tenderest palest leaves close to the curd.
I just divide up the Cauli equally between myself and Mrs Mull, pour the sauce on top and yell 'It's ready!!!' usually followed by the only half joking instruction 'Eat it before it sets!'
We love it.
And yes.. 3 oz of cheese each is maybe a bit much, but it's only a few times a year.
If catering for friends, I sometimes make an oven baked version of the above with a bit of grated cheese on top, to accompany a roast, or a good casserole of beef and anything from Carots, roast spuds/parsnips, Brussels Sprouts, Brocolli/Calabrese etc.
When I was small, my Mum rarely served 'green/runner' beans without a plain white sauce.. if cauliflower was also on the menu, she'd quickly throw a bit of cheese into the remaining white sauce and put a splodge of that on the Cauli. That would usually be part of a Sunday roast.. which was almost always beef. I was given the task of digging up a bit of Horseradish Root from the garden and grating it for horseradish sauce. If it was lamb, I'd make mint sauce. None of yer ready made jars back then.
