How a Master French Chef Makes Croque Monsieur

[gentle music plays]

[Alexia] Croque Monsieur is the ultimate French sandwich.

It's special because it combines everything France loves:

cheese, bread, and ham.

There is an art in making the perfect sandwich, you know?

It's much more complex than people think.

The first step is going to be to make the roux.

To begin, we need to warm some milk

and I love to bring a bit of aromatics to the milk,

just with a touch of thyme to infuse

and to bring a bit more complexity to the sauce.

When you're cooking with milk, I would always go full fat.

Honestly, when you don't have any fat in milk,

it's basically water, so you might as well cook with water.

It's important that all the elements

when you're cooking are around the same temperature,

so basically adding cold milk to a bechamel,

you might have lumps, 'cause you're not going fast enough,

and because the cold element is gonna solidify

the butter,

and therefore not have something that's super smooth.

Bechamel is a preparation

that we'll use in a lot of different preparations in France.

It's basically warm milk

that you incorporate

into a mixture of equal parts flour and butter.

It has been likely cooked off to cook off the flour.

It's going to bring this gravy texture, quite silky,

and really like bring this nice charred cheese feel.

So to start the bechamel, you wanna add

your butter and the flour.

The ratio of the butter and the flour is 50/50.

You want equal parts.

This is why the mixture is called a roux.

So you cook it off for like two, three minutes.

People make mistakes when they're making roux,

because when you have too much butter, it actually separates

and there's not enough flour to hold onto the butter.

So, you have like, a split sauce.

For the roux, in this instance,

we're not looking for any color.

The bechamel should be kind of white, light yellow.

So, here we have the roux that's cooked.

It's starting to bind better than the first stages.

We just need to add the milk.

So the milk should be added in maybe three stages.

The first stage is

where you don't wanna incorporate too much,

because the idea is to bind everything together,

but you need to go bit by bit.

Don't try and be a hero and put too much,

otherwise you won't be able to rectify it.

Even if you see lumps at the beginning,

don't be scared to just whisk.

It's gonna go away.

If the milk is at the right temperature,

don't be afraid.

You might think that you messed up,

but look how it looked like, a second ago,

and now how it's starting to look.

It's all good.

The pan you're looking for when making bechamel is

something that doesn't have corners,

but you don't want angles,

because these angles are not gonna be

easy to kind of reach with your spatula or whisk.

Now we're just gonna season the bechamel.

Simple. Salt, say, two pinches.

It's important to taste anyway,

but because we're gonna add cheese,

you don't wanna go crazy.

A touch of nutmeg.

I'm actually not a fan of nutmeg,

but I feel like this is traditional.

This is what French people put in every Croque Monsieur,

so I'm just gonna go and put a touch.

Not too much.

I feel like nutmeg has been a bit overused in French cuisine

and especially like, at school lunches,

we would have a lot of things

that were quite heavy on nutmeg,

so it's just like a childhood souvenir

that I wasn't a big fan of.

Perfect. So we have great consistency. Seasoning is done.

We just need to add the cheese.

The sauce was made in three steps.

So, we started with a roux,

which is the flour and the butter cooked off.

We added milk, it became a bechamel,

and now we're adding cheese, and it's becoming a Mornay.

Mornay is when you add cheese to the bechamel

to have this kind of like, cheesy sauce

you like, you would put on like, nachos, basically.

So it's our nacho queso sauce in France.

For the cheese inside the Mornay,

I'm gonna use comte, which is extremely traditional.

It has really nice flavor, good balance, it's sharp,

it's not too mild, it has good structure.

So, two different cheeses for this recipe.

People typically go for Gruyere, or even Emmental,

in their Croque Monsieur.

The perfect blend for me is

a cheese that has character, has complexity and intensity,

but not too much that it takes away from the ham.

So, the cheese that I particularly love

in a Croque Monsieur is raclette.

It's not classic, it's also wintery,

but I feel like with a nice salad, it'll balance it out.

So, I think having the nuttiness and the complexity of comte

but the melting point

and the very like gooey decadence of raclette

is kind of the best of both worlds.

The comte needs to be graded with a box grater.

The ratio for the Mornay is as much as you want it to be.

I mean, we're not gonna lie,

this is not a light sandwich.

It's really all about more is more.

So, we will put quite a bit of it.

When you have a bechamel that's like, piping hot,

the cheese might split because of the temperature.

So, you want something that's warm enough that it melts,

but not piping hot.

So, I'm just gonna whisk it again

to make sure we have no lumps,

and then we're just gonna add a big handful.

This is like, a great texture.

You're looking for something that will be spoonable,

will be easily spreadable on top of your sandwich.

One thing I love about this sandwich is

that you can actually like, kind of meal prep it.

You can do a bunch of them,

put the bechamel that's cold on top,

and just like, put them in the freezer

and defrost it whenever you want it.

So, it's great for you know, weeknight, last minute dinner.

Bechamel is not as unstable as people might think.

It's actually super easy to warm back up.

You just have to make sure

that you're not warming it on too high heat.

Putting a bit of plastic wrap on the contact,

directly on the bechamel,

just so it doesn't dry out and create lumps.

Now, onto the fridge for half an hour.

So, the construction of the sandwich:

you have two slices of bread, a thin layer of mustard.

That's not necessarily conventional.

In the middle, you have some ham and some cheese,

bread, and then on top you have the bechamel,

which will completely coat the sandwich,

and really like bring this nice like charred cheese.

Yeah. Now, it's time to talk bread.

There are two different teams, in France at least.

It's either sourdough bread or the pain de mie.

Me I chose pain de mie, so let's cut it.

Pain de mie is basically French milk bread.

I feel like compared to the Japanese milk bread,

it's a lot denser.

You know, it doesn't like, squish as much.

Like, I'm pressing quite hard here,

and you see that there's nothing going on,

so I feel

like it's the perfect toasted sandwich bread for me.

What I love about a sourdough Croque Monsieur

is obviously taste, this like, tanginess.

The cons of using sourdough is

like, all the different holes from the sourdough,

which when you put mustard, when you put bechamel, creates

a very uneven sandwich.

Pre-sliced white bread will honestly do the trick.

What you're looking for if you're looking

for something in the supermarket is

something that doesn't have too much sugar in it.

I feel like the sugar

in like, typical supermarket white bread will

kind of bring a lot of imbalance in the taste.

I love slicing my own bread

because I could choose the thickness,

something that's not too thin, not too thick,

roughly I would say 1.5 centimeters.

Ham.

I feel like there are many ways

that you can mess up the sandwich

if you don't have the right ham.

My preference is either Jambon de Paris,

which is like the typical French ham,

but it's a ham that has very little intervention.

You're not looking for too many spices,

too many aromatics, no sugar.

It's quite dry when you look at it.

It's not like, you know,

when you buy ham at the supermarket,

there's this like, layer of like, moisture.

If you can't find french ham, I love the Italian hams

that you get at delis, the gran biscotto, prosciutto corto.

For thickness though, I like to do quite thin,

and to put a lot of it.

I think it brings more layers

than to go for something a bit thicker.

But then again, that's my personal preference.

Some people like to keep the fat on the ham.

I personally do not.

I will trim the fat,

just because I feel like I don't think it's very enjoyable,

like, chewing on a piece of warm ham fat

in a Croque Monsieur, but that's really my thing.

I'm just gonna put it, you know, bunches like that. Perfect.

Whenever you're ordering Croque Monsieur,

you will always get a salad.

It's also a good balance.

A Croque Monsieur is extremely rich,

and you want something that cuts through the fat.

So, before building a sandwich,

I'm gonna take care of the vinegarette.

What I'm gonna do with the vinegarette is have

a balance of heat with the mustard,

sweetness with honey, and acidity with vinegar,

which will cut through the fat.

I like the quite like strong mustard. One spoon of that.

Salt, two pinches. Some fresh, cracked black pepper.

My favorite, sarawak.

I think it has this intensity

and this like, toasty, meaty note.

I think that grinding fresh spices in general is

extremely different than having

something that's like, already grind like, months ago.

I like a mortar and pestle,

just because of the visual aspect.

I feel like sometimes with a pepper grinder,

I'm not looking exactly at what I want,

and here I can just like...

I don't know. It's also like, romantic in a way.

You know, it's like, the old way, you wanna do it.

It's like, the craft.

So, we're looking for something that has

a bit of texture but not too much.

When you're building a vinegarette,

it's extremely important to start with mustard

if you're putting any, and then acid, salt.

The salt will dissolve in the vinegar.

If you start with oil, you will not be able

to have something that emulsifies.

I like honey in vinegarette.

I think it brings this nice sweetness

that makes you kind of crave salad,

and the idea is to just go bit by bit,

very gentle in your olive oil.

Emulsifying is basically binding

two things that should not be together together.

We have a good amount of vinaigrette.

Also, I like to loosen up a bit with water,

just because I hate a thick salad vinaigrette.

The only thing that will add to the salad is

some raw shallots, just for tang, texture.

This sharpness is gonna cut through the fat. Perfect.

Okay, the vinegarette is done.

Now it's time to build the Croque Monsieur.

So, we have two slices of bread.

I like to put a touch of mustard,

just for a little kick on one side.

Dijon mustard is the best mustard.

It's not sweet, it's really strong.

You want that really, really strong taste

that kind of takes you up in the nose,

and you're not sure if you're enjoying it,

or if it's the worst moment of your life.

It's been named after the city of Dijon,

which originally made it.

What makes it special is basically the seeds,

which are much stronger than the American ones we find here.

I'm just gonna put a very thin layer

on one side of the sandwich.

You wanna make sure you're putting cheese

on every side of the sandwich.

Otherwise, you're gonna have one side

that's stuck to the bread, and the other one will not be.

We're gonna use the raclette.

Put the bread on the side,

and take a little peeler, just like, slice

some very thin raclette.

You don't wanna go crazy on the cheese.

More is not always better. It's all about balance here.

We're pretty good. Then, we'll go in with the ham.

I like when there's a pretty decent layer of ham,

because don't forget that the Mornay on top will be

extremely rich.

When you cook the Croque Monsieur,

like, a lot of people just will put this

in a broiler like that, with the bechamel on top.

Why I don't like this?

You're gonna have a top layer that's quite mushy,

and I think that's a bit sad.

Hot pan, drizzle of oil.

Using some sort of weight will give you

a really nice, even toastiness.

If you don't have a weight, you can use another pan.

You can use your hands, honestly.

Like, just also pressing it,

especially at the beginning when it's not too hot.

You're just giving this like, even layer,

and then you can start letting go.

A spoon of butter.

A lot of mistakes people make

when they make a Croque Monsieur

but even a grilled cheese I think,

is coloring the bread too fast,

and then the cheese is not melted.

So you wanna take your time, you wanna make sure

that both of these things come together,

and like, don't be afraid of flipping it regularly

instead of just like, doing everything on one side

and then the other.

That's what you're looking for.

Nice, brown, not burnt,

and the second layer is sometimes a bit trickier,

because you have a bit of browning in the butter

so it can burn a bit more.

So, just add a touch of butter

to kind of like, let it cool off

and stop the heavy browning.

Now that we have the color that we're looking for,

we're not looking for more browning.

It's just about this constant flipping

every minute or two just to make sure

that the heat that's in the bottom,

we flip it, it goes back to the bottom,

and then we flip it again.

Then kind of like, plays this game

of like, rising to the center.

You know, a lot of Croque Monsieur,

if they're not done properly,

you'll have cold ham in the center,

and that's not really nice.

For me, I would rather it being a 10 minute cooking time

and having something that is the best thing I've ever had,

than trying to rushing it and maybe cooking

in two, three minutes

and having something that's kind of like, meh.

You can see that the cheese is melting

and sticking to the bread.

So, I'm gonna leave that here for a sec.

Final part of the sandwich.

Putting the Mornay back on the Croque Monsieur,

and then onto a sheet tray, and in the oven.

So, the Mornay is cold.

Why it's a good thing: it's gonna be easy to spread.

Pretty decent amount.

You want this kind of like, gooey feel.

Onto a tray, then onto the oven.

If you don't have a tray, you can use

the pan that you use for cooking.

While the Croque Monsieur is in the oven,

I season my salad.

So here, I have

a mix of some mustard, sorrel, amaranth,

bunch of different nice greens from the markets.

I like to use my fingers instead of like, a spoon,

just because I feel like I can actually work that salad.

I can get all the dressing incorporated

instead of just like, coating it.

We have the shallots here, they're marinated.

Looks so good.

I think that dressing should always be mixed in,

instead of like, just put on top or on the side.

Having that dressing mixed perfectly

with whatever you're putting in your salad is

what makes the salad magical.

You know when you go to a restaurant you're like,

That salad is so good,

I would never be able to make it at home.

This is exactly what we do.

So, we have our salad ready

for when the croque is out of the oven.

Also in French, we don't say, Croque Monsieur.

We say croque.

It's like, just the first word, you know?

Do you wanna be a real French?

You just say, I'm gonna make myself a croque.

A croque is a bite, so it's even like Mr. Bite, basically.

I'm really looking for a certain color,

like this perfect golden brown

and I just don't wanna miss the mark,

so I'm just gonna watch it for the whole time.

It's like my favorite show, you know?

So, we have the perfect Croque Monsieur.

Perfect char on top.

This panicule comes from the bechamel. I cut in half.

[bright music plays]

This is exactly what you're looking for.

The nice ratio of ham and cheese in the Mornay

that's really like, you could feel like, nice and gooey,

but kind of holds its shape as well.

Looks so good. Nice dose of greens.

You want to taste the Croque Monsieur

while it's still like, hot.

I use fork and knife, and then I use my fingers.

I feel like Croque Monsieur is

always too messy to eat with just your fingers.

It's so good.

The nutmeg just hits right,

and the thyme that I infuse in the milk comes out.

I mean, this is honestly like a grilled cheese on steroids.

And then, a bit of salad for good measure. Yeah.

This is a full meal right here.

Bon appetit.