French Food Friday - Croque Monsieur

The sun is shining and the weekend beckons. For me Croque Monsieur is one of our favourite weekend recipes and is perfect for brunch.

If you’ve never had a Croque Monsieur then you may be wondering what it is. Simply put, it’s a ham and cheese sandwich with Dijon mustard and topped with béchamel sauce. It’s then toasted to perfection – bubbly and golden brown.

You already know how to make a béchamel sauce as we made one last week,  it was the base for the cheese souffle.

As far as the bread is concerned the choice is yours, we tend to use either a sour dough type bread or white bread that is thickly sliced and referred to as pain anglais. You can really is whatever you prefer.

The choice of which cheese to use is very important as you want to use a cheese which has a bit of flavour. We tend to favour Gruyère, as it  is a firm, slightly elastic mountain cheese with grates well and has a lovely  slightly sweet, nutty flavour.

To get the crunch (croque monsieur translates to crunchy man) we toast the bread before hand but you do not have to do this and may prefer your sandwich with less 'crunch".

Makes 2

Ingredients

50g butter, at room temperature
4 slices of bread, crusts cut off
1 tbsp plain flour
100ml milk
80g Gruyère, grated
Nutmeg, to grate
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 slices of good ham

METHOD

1. Preheat the grill to medium-high, line the tray with foil and put the butter in a pan over a medium-low heat to melt it. Brush one side of each slice of bread liberally with melted butter and put under the grill butter-side uppermost until golden and crisp, then set aside.

2. Stir the flour into the remaining butter to make a paste, cook for a minute, then gradually whisk in the milk, a little at a time, until smooth. Simmer for a few minutes, until thickened, then take off the heat and stir in 30g cheese until melted. Grate in a little nutmeg, stir and season lightly.

3. Spread the untoasted sides of the bread with mustard, then put the ham on top, followed by the cheese, and pop under the grill for a couple of minutes until the cheese has melted.

4. Top with the rest of the bread, with the toasted side uppermost, and push down, then put the sandwiches on to the grill tray and top with bechamel sauce. Grill for about 5 minutes, until golden and bubbling, and serve immediately.

bon appetit ♥

 Leeann x