Yesterday for lunch, we made one of the classics of the French café menu. It's a sandwich called « un croque-monsieur », which is a mysterious name. The verb croquer means to bite into and make a crunching sound, as in croquer une pomme (an apple, not a potato). So in this case, the monsieur, whoever he is, makes crunching sounds while eating a ham and cheese sandwich that has been toasted in a hot oven.
If you've ever had lunch or a snack in a French café, you've probably eaten a croque-monsieur, or its sister sandwich, the croque-madame. The latter is the same sandwich but with a sunny-side-up egg (un œuf sur le plat) perched on top of it. They're both good with some pommes frites (French fries) or a salade — or both.
To make the sandwich, you need grated cheese, a slice of ham, two slices of bread, some butter, and a little bit of béchamel sauce. That's a white sauce made with butter, flour, and milk. What you do is butter a slice of bread and then lay it butter-side down on a pan that you can put in the oven. Spread some béchamel on the upward-facing side the way you might put mayonnaise on a cold sandwich. Sprinkle on some grated cheese (Comté, Cheddar, Swiss) and lay a slice of sandwich ham (jambon de Paris) on top of that. Sprinkle on a little more grated cheese over the ham.
Now spread some béchamel on the second slice of bread and put it béchamel-side down on top of the grated cheese to close the sandwich. Finally, spread a little more béchamel on top of that slice and sprinkle on a last layer of grated cheese. Bake the sandwich in a hot oven until it is golden brown and the cheese is all melted. Voilà. Croquez ça, monsieur.
I mentioned salad, and we also had a classic French café salad with our toasted ham and cheese sandwiches yesterday. It's made with sliced Belgian endive (endive, chicon), cooked and dressed red beets (betteraves), and, optionally, some toasted walnuts. Salade d'endives aux betteraves is a standard, and walnuts give it... well, croque-salade, you might say.
By the way, this was yesterday's sunrise, seen from the kitchen window when I cranked up the roll-down shutter between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m.
Posted a little earlier than usual? It's not even 1h a.m. here in St. Louis... not quite 8h chez toi.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photo of the sunrise!
And, I love that salad with beets and endive. My au pair family used to put diced cheese of some kind, and diced apple (I sometime s have done it with diced pears... very nice... and goat cheese).
Judy, I usually try to post between 7 and 7:30 a.m. This morning it was 7:30 because j'ai fait la grasse matinée. Je ne me suis levé qu'à 5 h 50 !
DeleteI am afraid our local similar toast product is rather inferior.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry Andrew. They can be jolly inferior in France too. I've had one in a motorway services that was still frozen in the middle.
DeleteFood is always better made at home, unless you pay a fortune in a fancy restaurant. Why do people want to think that everything in France is perfect. An autoroute service area... really. Haute cuisine. LOL.
DeleteIt was ages ago the last time I had a croque-monsieur. Gargotes, greasy spoons, are not unheard of in France!
ReplyDeleteI remember when my mother and her sister came to France to visit in 2004. I drove up to Roissy to collect them, and somewhere along the way — Milly-la-Forêt ? Pithiviers ? — we stopped into a boui-boui to have a snack or light lunch before driving on to Saint-Aignan. I told my mother, who follows a fairly strict diet (allergies), to order a croque-monsieur, which is more or less a grilled cheese sandwich with ham in it. She did so. It came with mushrooms on it! I'd never heard of such a thing. Since mushrooms (many call them "toadstools")are not a thing people in the U.S. South eat very much, I'm sure my mother found it strange. The Larousse Gastronomique says the croque-monsieur can have tomato slices or even pineapple slices on it. Le monde change de peau... Évolution...
DeleteThis is really for your memory, Ken There used to be a sandwich stand on the Boul'Mich very near the Luxembourg RER station entrance. (That entrance no longer exists and, at that time, it was the end of the "Ligne de Sceaux" -- before it became the RER.) Back to the croque. That stand had the very, very best croques monsieur, better than any I've ever had since. There's was a lot of bechamel on top, so it wasn't dry, and only the bottom slice was toasty crisp. This stand existed back in 1970, when you were at the Pierwige, and for several years after, but I don't remember if it was still there when Walt came in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that sandwich stand. I wonder if it was still there when I worked near that entrance to the ligne de Sceaux train station in 1974-75. I remember the Wimpy's hamburger place on the corner of the rue Soufflot and the Boule'Mich' back then.
DeleteYes, it was still there, then. Nest door down the street from the Wimpy's.
DeleteMushroom eating / shopping in the US or at least my little corner of it, has risen to great heights lol The choices in markets is confusing and restaurants of all sorts use them.
ReplyDeleteI remember my son picking them out of a dish once in a restaurant .. making gagging noises the whole time. I think he finally stopped doing that :)