Cod and Poached Egg Florentine in a Mornay Sauce

This is comfort food at its best and despite the cheese is very good for you!!  Its a simple dish with 4 basic elements, cod loin or fillet, eggs cheese in a Bechamel sauce - simples!


The hardest part of this is to poach the egg, make sure its underdone if you like it runny as its going under the grill for 2 minutes or until the top is browned and bubbling.  Use whatever size fish portion you fancy and about 1 large bag of spinach  (Sainsbury size) about 200grams per person 
The process
Stage One 
So to start with make the Bechamel sauce.  I didnt bother with infusing the milk as i was adding cheese to it .
To make the sauce:

• 15fl oz/425ml milk 
• 1½oz/40g butter 
• ¾oz/20g plain flour 
• salt and freshly milled black pepper
• 2oz/50g of Emmental or Gruyere
• 2oz/50g of strong cheddar
• large teaspoon Dijon mustard
• half teaspoon of Paprika

Just in case you don't know how to do this, melt the butter and add the flour so they have bound into a ball or paste and cooked through.  Gently add the milk and make sure you stir this hard enough so that it binds completely.  Continue to do this slowly so that you don't get any lumps.  Once you have done that add the cheese, mustard and paprika and heat through.  I used a hand whisk to really make sure the cheese melted through and no lumps.

Stage Two 

Season the cod on both sides.  Loin is better simply because a nice thick steak is better than having to chop a fillet as it won't fit in the bowl and the tail will cook quicker.  Cook these on a very high heat one one side so it goes from opaque to nearly white.  Turn off the heat and turn them over and leave.

Stage Three

Cook the spinach.  A really easy way of doing this is to microwave the bags of fresh spinach - takes 3- 4 minutes.  Put the spinach in a pan and heat through more to get rid of some moisture but you don't want the spinach to become too wilted so that its an unidentifiable blob!

Stage Four

Poach the eggs.  This seems to be a tricky one for some people.  I make sure the eggs are very fresh and at room temperature and the water not bubbling with some vinegar and salt to help hold the egg.  A little swirl of the water helps too.

  

The assembly 

The bowls are covered in the Mornay Sauce and then sprinkled with Paprika and the placed under the grill for 2 minutes or until browned and bubbling

The finished dish with my knife spearing the soft poached - this dish is awesome.  Its comfort food at its best.  Don't forget to lick the bowl...