Croque Madame

Begin by making the bechamel sauce. Get out two saucepans. Heat one on a medium-low heat and the other on medium heat. To the pan on medium-low heat, add the milk and let it get warm. To the other pan, add the two tablespoons of butter and let it melt down and begin to bubble a bit. Add the flour to the butter and mix it very well to incorporate the two. Continue whisking for about two minutes, being careful not to let the flour mixture brown. Slowly add the warm milk into the flour mixture and continue whisking until everything is nice and smooth. You will whisk this for about 8-10 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Add in the salt, nutmeg and the parmesan cheese. Give a good mix, then remove it from the heat until it is ready to be used. This is your bechamel sauce!

Next, get a large skillet going on the stove, and bring that to a medium heat. Butter one side of four slices of bread (a tablespoon of butter per slice, or as much as desired) and lay them into the skillet, butter side down. The goal here is to get them nice and golden brown without burning them. As they begin to cook, add a tablespoon of mustard to the top of two pieces of the bread. Lay down three slices of Gruyère cheese on top of the mustard, then top each with four slices of black forest ham. Let the bread continue cooking on the skillet, lifting to peak at the bottom side every couple of minutes. Continue to cook until they have reached your desired golden brown color and have a crunchy exterior. Then remove the pan from the heat.

Now for the assembly.

Get your oven heating to 475 F.

Add the slices of toasted bread to a baking sheet. Place the two slices of plain toasted bread on top of the bread with the mustard, cheese and ham. Now take the bechamel sauce and generously spread it all over the top of each sandwich. Take half a cup of the grated Gruyère cheese and add that to the top of the bechamel sauce.

Place this under the broiler until the cheese is nice and bubbly and everything is warmed through, roughly 4-6 minutes.

During this time, add a tablespoon of butter to the skillet that you heated your bread in. Let it melt on medium-high heat. Crack the eggs into the skillet, leaving the yolks whole and cook until the whites around the yolk are cooked through—sunny side up style.

Remove the sandwiches from the broiler, and place them on a serving plate. Top each sandwich with the egg. Dig in!

What you get is a totally sexy sandwich. You get the perfect sharpness from the cheese and mustard, along with the creaminess of the egg and bechamel sauce. Then on top of that, you get the tender ham. Wow. Words sometimes cannot explain… However I am extremely glad that I forgot to eat breakfast this morning! Hope you enjoy.