Croque Monsieur

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup whole milk
4 slices French loaf bread*
4 slices Gruy�re or sharp Swiss cheese
4 slices high quality ham, medium thickness**
nutmeg
salt
pepper

Directions:

For the b�chamel: In a small pan, melt the butter. Add the flour along with a sprinkle of nutmeg, salt and pepper and stir until smooth. Add the milk and whisk together until slightly thickened. Set aside.

For each sandwich: Heat a large skillet. Place the bread on the (ungreased) skillet. Place the ham beside the bread on the skillet. Cook for about 1-2 minutes or until the bread is slightly toasted, then flip the bread and the slice of ham and cook 1 additional minute on the other side. Place the ham on top of the bread and turn off the heat. Drizzle with b�chamel sauce and top with one slice of cheese. Place on a oven safe tray and broil for about 2 minutes or until the cheese is hot and bubbly. Remove to a plate and serve.


*Trader Joe's sells a presliced French style loaf bread that works really well here.
**I like to buy those boneless hams and cut a slice off of that rather than to use presliced meat.

Yield 4 sandwiches

My thoughts:

As you might recall, I am teaching a quick Continental Cuisine class through a local community college. It is only a 3 week class and I have to cover three cuisines, so each cuisine (French, Italian and Spanish) only gets one two-hour class. It is a bit of a time crunch since we have to cook, eat and clean all in those two hours, but I think I am up to the challenge. Since today's the first class, I kept it simple and went with the French classic Croque Monsieur. Now I know some people make this differently, but to me the simple way is the best: good ham, good bread, and good cheese, a little bit of b�chamel sauce and served open faced. I love making it with Gruy�re, but that is some times difficult to find (I went to four stores and came up empty handed) so for class I substituted an easier to find high quality, sharp Swiss and I think it came out just as well.