Acini di Pepe with Saffron Béchamel

300 g Acini di pepe pasta, cooked al dente
1 kg European hake (the hole fish)
2 carrots, diced
2 onions, diced
1 large celery root, diced
dry white wine
90 g butter
70 g flour
70 ml milk
1 tsp saffron
1 bay leaf
2-3 bundles of parsley leaves
salt
ground black pepper

Clean the fish, but save central bone and the head. Remove the skin. Cut fish fillets that you got after cleaning in a bite sized pieces. In a large pot, put 1 l water with a glass of wine, half of the amount of the vegetables, bay leaf, salt, pepper, the fish bones and the head. From the moment it boils, cook for 40 minutes, and then strain.

Melt 20 g butter in a pan, add the remaining vegetables, fish, salt and pepper, wine to taste and 1 full ladle of fish broth you just cooked. Cook for 30 minutes and add some more broth and/or wine if needed.

To make béchamel, melt 60 g butter in a sauce pan, add flour and stir. Pour in warm milk with dissolved saffron in it. Cook until it thickens continuously stirring with a whisk.

Grease casserole dish with the remaining 10 g of butter, spread layer of pasta, then layer of fish, layer of béchamel and sprinkle some chopped parsley over. Do this until you ran out of the ingredients. Just make sure you finish with béchamel. Bake in a preheated oven on 180°C for about 25-30 minutes.

Acini di pepe pasta

Notes on this dish: The original Sale & Pepe recipe asked for 300 g lasagne sheets. But, I didn’t see that lasagne I had were pre-cooked and cooked them like they were not and everything got very sticky and unusable That is why I substituted it with Acini di pepe pasta that I usually add to the soup.

Note: I made this dish as a part of Sale & Pepe Serbia Tasting Team, for January/February 2009 issue and I am sending this to Ruth for this week’s Presto Pasta Nights. If you’d like to enter, send your entries to ruth [at] 4everykitchen [dot] com.