Sole Florentine

Sole à la Florentine (sole prepared with spinach and Mornay) teaches the discipline of a gratin: everything beneath the cheese must be properly cooked, thoroughly drained, and hot before the final flash. The broiler isn't there to cook the fish or evaporate a swamp beneath the sauce. It gives a quick bronze crown to a dish already complete.

The original entry assumed a stockpot of fish fumet never off the fire, a saucier holding Mornay, and a salamander ready to glaze on command. At home, you need a measured pan of fumet, one small saucepan, and the broiler set close above a shallow gratin dish. The vats and holding pans were brigade scaffolding, so they go; butter-poaching the sole, stewing the spinach in butter, napping with Mornay, and glazing quickly are the dish, so every one stays. Four portions, one cook, one stove, one evening.

When it is right, the sole remains tender beneath a sauce that gleams rather than runs, the spinach tastes deeply of itself and butter, and the cheese has caught in bronze patches across the top. The one step that decides it comes first: squeeze and cook the spinach until no water remains to loosen the Mornay.