No, this is not an ad for Grey Poupon mustard. Yes, it is an attempt by me to explore some simple French recipes. Explanation: I will be taking a trip to Paris this September and I thought it would be fun to try out a French recipe or two. Plus, I saw someone make a croque monsieur in a movie and it looked really delicious!
What is a croque monsieur? It's basically a French version of the grilled cheese sandwich.
Well, the recipe I used was pretty simple and very tasty. At least according to Brian's endless compliments at the table. (I'm beginning to think he likes everything I make...) I thought it tasted good, but have a hard time critiquing my own food. But the recipe was rated well and I must say, it was fun to just try something new and make a nice dinner out of it. Brian, picked up a bottle of wine and a small cake for dessert. Add a simple spinach salad and we were good to go. By the way, Brian got a merlot to go with the sandwiches, but a chardonnay or bordeaux would have been better. Who knew? We looked it up later. Brian picked the wine because it had a red bike on the label. LOL!
Ok, enough about bikes and wine. So, I made a few adjustments to the recipe. I used French bread and kept the crust on. Which makes it nice and crunchy on the edges. I really like crunchy food. :} The better the quality of bread you use, the better it will turn out. I also divided the recipe in half since it was only for two, and gruyere is not cheap. And two adjustments I would add, is don't add salt to the sauce. The ham and cheeses are salty enough on their own. This recipe calls for one slice of ham, but I had a hard time tasting it sometimes. I would probably add two next time.
This recipe is not a baking recipe, though you do use the oven. Why did I include this in my blog? First, I feel it was hard enough to merit one post. While it was simple, the recipe included making a bechamel sauce. (Probably why it's rated as intermediate.) And any recipes that include "whisk over heat until sauce thickens" are my nemesis.
Second, a baking blog, though full of many possibilities, is also limited to just baking. So I have been thinking of expanding the horizons of this blog with cooking and other topics. We'll see how this goes.
Well, if anyone uses this recipe, please let me know how it turns out. And if you need it, yes, I can pass the Grey Poupon.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/croque-monsieur-recipe/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment