Dazned - nothing like a good fish finger sandwich!
Evelyn it's added to the béchamel. I buy it in M and S, smoked cured pork loin, it looks like a bacon joint but is much milder and sweeter. If there's a chunk left I shred it and add it to pasta bakes.
It's just a normal béchamel, very heavily laced with freshly grated nutmeg and cayenne and with as much cheese as you'd like. I use parmesan and gruyere. Pasta of your choice, mine is De Cecco chifferi rigati no 33 which is a small c shaped tube: tubes are good with a béchamel as they act like little spoons scooping up the sauce.
I boil a big pan with salted water, toss in the pasta and as soon as it boils again toss in bite size pieces of caul, broccoli, petit pois (anything that takes your fancy) then drain and stir into the sauce. At that stage I stir in a big bag of raw spinach which wilts in the heat of the sauce.
Pile it all into an oven proof dish, cover with a mixture of parmesan and panko crumbs (I buy these from Waitrose in their Cooks Ingredients section, they are much lighter and crunchier than normal breadcrumbs and they add texture to the topping). Pop in the oven until brown and crispy on top. Pasta should not be anything other than al dente before it goes in the oven as it becomes overcooked if oven cooked as well.
Enjoy x
