Easy and Delicious Croque Monsieur Recipe
I have been cooking foods from all around the world. Today, I am excited to be cooking something from French cuisine.
Of course, the internet is full of amazing recipes of all kinds of French meals, but I have decided to cook and share with you a croque monsieur recipe. Let’s learn how to make croque monsieur together!
A croque monsieur is basically a French take on toasted ham and cheese. To make this, we are going to need a French loaf, some ham, some Gruyere cheese, Dijon mustard, and we are going to make béchamel sauce from scratch. Let’s get started!
Béchamel sauce:
1. To start the béchamel sauce, get a tablespoon of butter on the pan and give it a minute to melt.
2. Sprinkle in a tablespoon of all purpose flour. Give it a whisk. You want the flour and the butter to cook for a couple of minutes just to cook out that raw flour taste.
3. Gradually pour in one cup of milk and keep whisking until it comes together and makes a smooth and creamy sauce.
4. Season with salt and pepper. Some people also add nutmeg.
This is what your béchamel sauce will look like. Set this to the side and start assembling the sandwiches.
Sandwiches:
1. Shred your Gruyere cheese. Gruyere cheese is sweet and nutty and it goes so well on grilled cheeses. Some people
are scared of specialty cheeses or cheeses that we typically do not use in American cooking, but this cheese is not sour or pungent, but rather sweet and nutty, and it is going to go really well in this dish.
2. Take your French loaf and cut it into slices. Get an even amount of slices, so you can easily turn them into sandwiches.
3. Preheat the oven to 400 F and briefly toast the bread in the oven. Keep the oven on for the future steps.
Here is my toasted French bread.
4. Let’s begin assembling the sandwiches! Take one piece of bread and put Dijon mustard on that side. Spread that around.
5. Get the second piece, sprinkle some grated cheese on it, add a piece of ham on top, then top with some more cheese. Put on the first piece of bread, mustard side down, and you have your sandwich. Return it to the baking sheet and keep going with the rest of the bread.
Baking:
1. Once all your sandwiches are on the baking sheet, get your béchamel sauce and spread it on the top layers of bread. Each sandwich requires about two tablespoons of sauce.
2. Top the sandwiches with more cheese.
3. Return the sandwiches to the 400 F oven and wait until the cheese melts, which should take around five minutes.
4. Crank it up to broil for a few minutes to get the cheese on top to bubble up.
5. Let the sandwiches cool and enjoy!
These are so good. They remind me of breakfast sandwiches with the ham and the cheese, and béchamel is giving me gravy vibes.
Interesting fact: the croque monsieur has a sister sandwich called croque madame, which is made the exact same way, but they put a fried egg on top with the yolk uncooked.
From what I was reading, they call that a croque madame because the fried egg on top of the sandwich looks like a bonnet.
Croque monsieur recipe
I hope that you have enjoyed this easy croque monsieur recipe. I have had so much fun making foods from all around the world.
It has been truly educational, I got to eat food I have never tried before and cook with ingredients I have never cooked with before. This is definitely something I recommend doing if you are interested in expanding your culinary horizons.
What foods from other cultures do you make at home? What is the most exotic and unusual meal you have ever prepared? Leave a comment and let me know!
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