Croque Madame

Croque Monsieur is one on my favorite things. I ate a lot of croque monsieur when we were in Paris last May. So when SP saw that Cook's Country featured it on the cover of the October/November 2018 issue, he went in search of the issue & bought it. We turned the monsieur into a madame (topped with a fried egg) since it was dinner.

This dish is a little hard to coordinate, especially when we like our fried eggs at different doneness. Lots of parts to manage. The sauce is butter, flour, milk, gruyere, parmesan, and nutmeg.

It doesn't take too long to whip up the sauce. Cook the flour and butter together:

Add milk:

Get your bread toasting:

The bread is toasting, the sauce still needs whisking, and you also have to get your egg started: 

Well, my egg, since I like it cooked longer than SP. The first egg is in the skillet, the bread is toasted, and the sauce finished (shortly after whisking in the milk, whisk in the cheeses and nutmeg):

Nice, thickened, cheesy sauce. Time to make the sandwich, layering bechamel, ham, and gruyere on the toast.

More sauce and grated gruyere & parmesan on top before broiling the sandwiches.

This egg didn't really spread out, so it ended up looking sadly undersized atop the sandwich:

Bubbling cheese:

A little crisp on the edges, but not bad:

Topped with sad, little egg:

I like my yolk not too runny, so when I sliced my sandwich, yolk didn't ooze everywhere.

So good! We used a hearty-ish country bread from a bakery. Next time, I might try more of a sandwich bread. I think that might help with the slightly too crispy crust edges. But we'll definitely make this again. We had salad on the side for a more complete dinner.

Read more here. Recipe here.