Adventures in Cooking...: Something new

Part of what I wanted to do here on this blog, is share my experiences with new recipes. Sometimes I'm sure I will find a recipe that I won't make again. This might be one of those. Not horrible by any means, but maybe a little rich for our tastes.

For a while now, probably since I saw the movie It's Complicated, I've wanted to make croque monsieur or croque madame. Remember when Meryl whips it up for Steve, and how impressed he is? So, this past weekend, another experimentation.

The results? Mixed...I liked it, although it is an encredibly rich dish, but my daughter says once is enough.

Now, keep in mind this dish is decadent. It's basically a French version of an American ham and cheese sandwich, and for good measure, throw a fried egg on top. Once again, as I often do, I did not follow one recipe in particular, but instead reviewed a few and improvised. The recipe always calls for gruyere cheese, of the Swiss cheese family. I found a cheese that was a said it was a "melange" of gruyere and white cheddar. I like to buy things that I know I can use again, not just for one recipe and then wonder what to do with the leftovers. I do consider myself a bit of a frugal gourment after all.

The flop part of this recipe for me was that I overcooked my eggs. My intention was to leave them sunnyside up, rather than a full (flipped) fried egg, but this is where my daughter objected. So, I flipped the egg, and let it sit a little too long while I was broiling the cheese/ham/sauce mixture and the eggs got a bit overdone. I would have liked a runnier yolk. Overall, it has a rich, creamy taste with a little tang from the dijon mustard that helps to cut through the richness of the bechamel sauce. My daughter still says she'll stick with Eggs Benedict.

The basic ingredients: french bread, dijon mustard, ham, gruyere cheese, bechamel sauce, & eggs.

I am sharing with you two basic recipes I found on the Food Network site, to give you an idea of how this dish is made. Find them here and here. By the way, the difference between croque monsieur and croque madame is the addition of the fried egg on top (madame).