Steamed cod in white sauce
A dish that asks almost nothing of you, or your stomach
Doubles by using a wider pan for poaching two fillets at once and making more sauce and mash to match.
Older cookbooks call this steamed fish, though what actually happens is gentler than that. A cod fillet slides into barely simmering milk and cooks through in the time it takes the kettle to boil twice. The reward for such a quiet method is a sauce that costs you nothing extra, since the poaching milk becomes the white sauce itself, thickened with a little butter and flour and spooned straight back over the fish. There is no browning, no reducing, nothing that can go wrong while your attention is elsewhere. Serve it over mash soft enough to fall off the spoon and the whole plate can be eaten with the side of a fork.
Ingredients
Contains: Fish, Milk, Gluten
- 275 gpotato, peeled and cut into even chunks
- 300 mlwhole milk
- 1cod fillet, about 160 g, skinless and boneless
- 25 gunsalted butter, 15 g for the sauce, 10 g for the mash
- 15 gplain white flour
- salt
Method
Put the potato chunks in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 15 to 18 minutes, until a knife slides in with no resistance.
Meanwhile, pour the milk into a small, wide pan and bring to a bare simmer, below the boil. Lower the cod fillet in, cover and poach gently for 8 to 10 minutes, until it turns opaque all the way through and flakes easily.
Lift the fish onto a warm plate and cover it to keep it warm. Pour 200 ml of the poaching milk through a fine sieve into a jug, so no stray flakes go into the sauce, and set the rest of the milk aside.
Melt 15 g of the butter in a small pan, stir in the flour and cook for a minute, stirring, until it smells biscuity rather than raw. Take off the heat and gradually whisk in the 200 ml of sieved milk, then return to a low heat and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, whisking, until it is smooth and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Season with salt.
Drain the potato well and mash with the remaining 10 g of butter and a splash of the poaching milk until smooth. Season with salt.
Spoon the mash onto a warm plate, set the fish on top and pour over the sauce.
Watch-points
- Use a skinless, boneless cod fillet, and run a finger over it to check for stray pin bones before it goes into the milk.
- Poach the fish gently, at a bare simmer, so the milk does not catch or split.
- Mash the potato until completely smooth, with no lumps left.
Stoma note: The potato and the milk-based sauce here both tend to thicken output, which can help on a loose day.
Make it more nourishing
- Use whole milk plus a tablespoon of skimmed milk powder in the poaching liquid. It thickens the sauce and adds protein without changing the taste.
- Stir 20 g of grated Cheddar into the sauce once it is off the heat.
- Beat an extra 15 g of butter into the mash.
Swaps
- Instead of cod, use haddock or pollock
- any firm white fish poaches the same way
- Instead of a flour-thickened sauce, use 2 teaspoons of cornflour slaked in a little cold milk, whisked into the hot milk instead
- quicker, and useful if you would rather skip the roux