Mike van de Elzen: Croque monsieur

Croque monsieur

Cook time: 10 minutes 

Prep time: 30 minutes 

Serves: 4

8 slices of thick white bread or sour dough 

1 ltr bechamel sauce 

8 slices gruyere cheese 

4 slices of smoked ham 

2 tbsp Dijon mustard 

butter for spreading on bread

Bechamel sauce 

4 tbsp butter 

4 tbsp flour 

500 ml milk  

Pinch of nutmeg  

Salt

Preheat a oven to 200*c

Start by making a bechamel sauce. In a medium sized saucepan melt the butter, adding in the flour, cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes - then turn off and allow to cool.  

Slowly add in the milk a little bit at a time, whisking after each addition. Once all the milk has been added, cook out for a further couple of minutes. Add the nutmeg and salt and allow to cool.  

To make up your croque monsieur:

Take one piece of bread and spread over a good layer of bechamel sauce, then a little Dijon. Slice of ham and cheese, then another layer of bread. Bechamel another slice of cheese.  

Sprinkle with salt and then place into the oven for 10 minutes.  

The end result should be bubbling cheese with a gooey center.  

The best toasted sandwich in the world. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talks'b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It is time for our resident chief Mike vander Allison.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good morning, good morning, how are we very good?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thank you hey. Last week we were talking about in
the Michelin list, of course, was announced on Tuesday. It
was a little bit like having our own sort of
celebrity wedding, wasn't it. Everyone was following it on social media,
it was. It was all very exciting. What were your
takeouts or takeaways from the list?

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I was a little bit there were three very I
didn't realize there were so many layers to the Micheland
You had you had the first layer, which was the
star layer, then you had what they call the bib Awards,
which was the next layer down, and then you had
a third layer below that. So I didn't actually realized
there were so many layers to it. But my takeout,

(00:55):
it's got to be good for the country, isn't it.
If it gets people out, if it gets people into
the country dining at all these places, and it's got
to be a great thing. Plus it did what it
said it would do. It got people talking about eating
out it sure.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Did, and a little bit of you know, like everybody's
got their thoughts on it and who shouldn't who shouldn't have,
and who missed out maybe and things like that. Was
there anyone in particular that you were disappointed that maybe
didn't get loan?

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Possibly one of my old chess Fraser, who owns runs
a restaurant and Simon Street called Lilias. I was hoping
he would get either into the BIB or possibly into
the Star. He didn't. But hate there's always next year,
you know, It's not like it finishes at this. You
continue this journey.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, I know that that's a hugely popular and very
hard to get into restaurants. So he's okay, he's doing Okay,
that's good, isn't it. Here we go right, so you've got
a little French number for us.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Have you to do.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
After a good game of rugby last night?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
I did watch that. I was quite tired because we
had farm shop on yesterday, and I tell you it
was like watching a rugby game on fast forward.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Holy mo fun. It was such fun, it really was.
I mean, look, we'll talk about this next hour as
well with Piney. Wasn't perfect, but it was really good
to see that intent back with the all Blacks. So
tell me about the Kroc monsieur.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Isn't an amazing thing. So it translates into mister crunch.
I love that name for a toasted there would say krouckmanteur.
It originates in originated in the nineteen hundreds. It actually
debuted on a menu in nineteen ten. And back then,
like though it begets were a massive thing that you
would have your your toasted sandwich would be in a bagett.

(02:39):
But what happened in this particular cafe in nineteen ten
is he ran out of begett and so he had
to go for a soft square sandwich. And that was
the birth of the krochmanchur. So it came about because
of a shortage of begett.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
There we go, There we God. I did not actually
kind of realize it was toasty.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
It just sounds so much letter I know, And it
has to be one of the most delicious toasted sandwiches
there are. So what makes it so unique as the
beshmel that goes into it. So it's a toasted sandwich.
And the bechemel again came later in nineteen ten. It
was just simply grewey and cheese ham between two pieces
of white bread. Later on, in about the nineteen fifties

(03:24):
nineteen sixties, is they shift it up. So a chef said, hey,
what about if we put a piece of besh mao
or a slice of besh mao or a smother of
bechemel onto this. And what the bechemel does is bechemel
being a white sauce as it enrichens it. It makes
it super Moorish, and I think that's what makes it
croc mateur so special.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay, so we've got eight slices of thick white bread
sour dough.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
It is a good choice also, absolutely, so I just
used I actually just used super thick toast bread for
this yesterday. So make up your bechemel sauce. It's pretty simple.
Four tablespoons of butter, heat that in a medium pan
and in four tablespoons of flour, cooked that out for
a couple of minutes, then goes and half a liter
of milk. This is going to make four really big

(04:11):
toasted sandwiches. So a half a lead of milk, cook
that out into it's thickened, and then a little bit
of salt pinching upmeg. Set that aside, good to go.
Then turn on your oven two hundred degrees. Take your
pieces of thick white toast, smother on a diesel amount
of that besh of maale sauce. Then you go a
little bit of dish mustard, and then on top of
that you go some slices of smoked ham and the

(04:33):
all important grie yet cheese. That's the first lader. Then
put on another piece of toast and just go beshamel
and cheese for the final layer. Fire that into the
oven two hundred degrees, Like I said, super hot. It's
going to be in there for about five to six minutes.
And what do you want to see is the top
of that cheese on that top layer just start to
golden up and become nice and crispy. And then you

(04:54):
pull that out, slice it in half and it should
be uber gooey in the center. Honestly, make it up.
You would love it.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
It sounds like the perfect sort of winter Sunday afternoon lunch,
doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's amazing You could You could pair it up with
a bit of pumpkin soup, or you probably should go
French French onion soup French onion soup.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, no one, I love it. Thank you so much.
Mike will talk next week. You can get that recipe
from Good from Scratch dot co dot inz, or of
course you can head to News TALKSB dot co dot
in z, forward slash Sunday. All our interviews, all our
information is up there. It is a thirteen to eleven
News Talks ITB.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio