Cod à la Béchamel

Ingredients

• cold cooked cod, flaked
• 4 tbsp béchamel sauce
• 2 oz butter
• pepper and salt
• fried bread
• bread crumbs

Method

Warm the béchamel and butter together in a heavy-bottomed pan over moderate heat, stirring constantly. The butter will melt into the sauce within two minutes; don't let the mixture colour or separate. Once unified, taste and season aggressively with salt and white pepper — the fish is mild and will absorb flavour without complaint. Fold in the flaked cod gently but thoroughly, breaking up any clumps as you work. The fish will warm through in under a minute. The warmth of the béchamel is doing the work here: there's no cooking required since the cod is already cooked, only gentle reheating and emulsification of the sauce around the flakes.

Arrange a border of fried bread around the serving dish — cut thick enough to provide structure and hold the sauce without collapsing. Pile the fish mixture into the centre, then scatter a thin, even layer of fine bread crumbs across the surface. This isn't decoration; the crumbs will absorb any butter you apply and crisp during browning, creating texture against the soft fish beneath.

Baste the whole dish generously with melted butter using a pastry brush. Use enough that the bread crumbs are thoroughly saturated but not swimming; two to three passes across the surface should do it. The [[browning|butter-soaked crumbs will brown and colour far more evenly than dry ones, and the fat carries heat more efficiently to the surface than dry heat alone.

Finish under a hot grill or salamander (in professional kitchens, the salamander is standard — a radiant overhead heater). Place the dish about 10 centimetres below the heat source and watch constantly. The top will take three to five minutes to turn deep gold, depending on your grill's intensity. You're after even colour across the bread crumbs, not scattered patches. The butter underneath will sizzle gently, and the smell will shift from raw butter to toasted and nutty — that's your cue to pull it.

Garnish with fried bread cut into triangles or other shapes, nestled around the rim, and serve directly from the dish while the surface still holds its warmth and the bread crumbs retain their crisp shell.