Croque Monsieur

How has it taken me 55 years to finally eat that French sandwich classic, a Croque Monsieur?

No wonder people rave about it: a silky béchamel sauce elevates a hot baked ham and cheese sandwich that is draped with melty cheese.

Since it’s my first time making this sandwich, let alone eating one, I surfed the internet for recipes and everyone’s recipe is just a little bit different than the others. The most decadent treatment comes from Bon Appetit—I mostly followed this recipe.

First, my mise en place for the béchamel, which is my favourite of the five mother sauces. I’m going to need 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1-1/4 cups milk (a little less than what the Bon Appetit recipe calls for), 2 tbsp. grainy mustard, and 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, salt to taste. I’ve also grated 2 cups of gruyere cheese and set aside slices of ham.

Béchamel is one of the easiest sauces in the world to make and it’s great to incorporate pastas and casseroles or to smear on sandwiches (better than mayo—fight me!). Melt the butter to start the roux (medium temperature).

Add the flour and stir until it’s bonded with the butter (1 minute or 2).

Now that it’s nice and glossy, slowly whisk in the milk and keep whisking until it’s got a thick consistency. Like this.

Add the mustard, nutmeg, and kosher salt to taste; remove from the stovetop.

Time to build our sandwich! First, I’ve set the oven to 350 degrees and prepared a baking tray with parchment paper. Down goes four slices of rustic sourdough bread. Spread dijon mustard on two of the slices (they’ll go on the top of the sandwich) and spread béchamel on the other two slices (they’ll go on the bottom of the sandwich).

Ham and cheese go on the béchamel side of the bread.

Top that with the other slice of bread, mustard side down. Spread some more béchamel sauce on that top slice of bread and top that with a generous amount of cheese for melting. You want both sauce and cheese at the top — it’s what makes this such a special sandwich.

Pop those puppies in the oven for 5-10 minutes—until you’ve got a hot, bubbly, decadent sandwich. Voila! It’s a knife and fork situation.

This sandwich surprised me with its creamy goodness. Everything works, including the subtle sharpness of the mustard to cut through the all of that sauce and cheese. Since I’ve started this sandwich blog, the Croque Monsieur has been the most requested sandwich to make. Now I know why.

— Trish Hennessy