Not Your Mama's Grilled Ham and Cheese!

My favorite lunch when in Paris is a Croque Madame. Basically this is the French version of a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, called a Croque Monsieur, with a twist. But it is oh-so-much better than our American grilled ham and cheese sandwich!

The Croque Madame is a Croque Monsieur sandwich topped with a fried egg. Picture two slices of toasted buttered bread surrounding ham and gruyere cheese and a little Dijon mustard,  covered in a cheesy Bechamel sauce,  popped under a grill until the sauce is golden and bubbling, with a fried egg on top. So delicious! 

Croque Madame, frites, salad, and a glass of French red wine. Perfect lunch!

I decided to try this version of the Croque Madame from Rachel Khoo. It is an easy way to experience the French déjeuner.

Croque Madam Muffins

Adapted from The Little Paris Kitchen, 120 Simple but Classic French Recipes
Rachel Khoo, Copyright 2012, Chronicle Books 

This recipe uses the bread as a muffin cup to hold the cheese sauce and egg. 
Preparation time: 20 minutes, Baking time 15-20 minutes.

Ingredients:

For the cheese sauce -

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 c plus 1 tbsp milk, lukewarm
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
salt and pepper

Melt the butter over low heat and add the flour and mix till you have a smooth paste. Take off the heat and let cool for 2 minutes, then gradually add the milk, beating constantly. Place the pan over medium heat and add the mustard and nutmeg and gently simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent the sauce from burning on the bottom of the pan. Once the sauce thickens, remove from the heat and add the cheese (reserving a little bit for the garnish). Season to taste with salt and pepper. If sauce is too thick, add a little milk.

For the sandwich - 

6 slices of white bread, crusts removed
3 tbsp butter, melted
2 1/2 oz ham cut into cubes of thin strips
6 small eggs

To assemble the sandwiches, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Flatten the slices of bread with a rolling pin, then brush both sides with melted butter.  Line a 6 cup muffin tin with the slices of bread, pressing the bread down with a small glass.

Divide the ham between the muffin cups followed by the eggs (if the eggs seem too big, pour a little of the white away before using). 

Put 2 tbsp of the sauce on top of each egg, then sprinkle with some of the reserved cheese and salt and pepper. Bake for 15-20 minutes depending on how runny you like your eggs. Serve immediately.

I served the Croque Madames for supper with Two-Way Potato-Leek Soup from yesterdays' blog.

It was a hit with my husband, so that means "Thumbs Up"!

It's Souper Tuesday!

A simple and satisfying soup on a fall day is one of life's pleasures.  This is an easy recipe for a delicious potato leek soup that you can make in the slow cooker. It requires only a bit of chopping of the vegetables and then pureeing at the end of the cooking time. This is going to go well with the Croque Madam Muffins I am going to serve for dinner tonight.

The recipe is called Two-Way Potato-Leek Soup from The French Slow Cooker by Michele Scicolone. It's titled Two-Way Potato-Leek Soup because you can serve it either hot or cold. I am always looking for easy slow cooker recipes and this one fits the bill. This is a rather complete cookbook of recipes from soups to desserts, including a chapter on souffles, quiches and other egg dishes you can make in a slow cooker.

Recipe based on Two-Way Potato-Leek Soup

The French Slow Cooker
Michele Scicolone
Copyright 2012 


Ingredients:

2 medium onions, sliced
2 medium leeks, trimmed, well washed and sliced
4 medium boiling potatoes, cleaned and sliced (I used Honey Gold)
4 cups broth (store bought okay); chicken broth, vegetable broth, or water. (I prefer to use chicken broth).
4 cups water
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

In a large slow cooker, combine the onions, leeks, potatoes, broth and water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the vegetables are tender. 

Let cool slightly. Transfer the soup to a blender or use an immersion blender to puree until smooth. Stir in the cream and taste for seasoning, adjust as necessary.  Serve hot or chill completely and serve cold.

Makes 6 servings.

Some variations:  

Serve hot or cold with chopped chives and a drizzle of creme fraiche or heavy cream. 

Serve hot topped with crumbly bacon or hot topped with crumbled blue cheese.

Some people may not know the proper way to clean leeks. It's easy! Click here.

You will love the velvety texture and flavor of this versatile soup, serve it cold in the summer or hot on chilly days.




 

The Little Paris Kitchen

The little Paris kitchen...yes, the kitchens are quite small in Paris (at least at the apartments I've rented there). But the amazing thing about Paris kitchens is, they may be small, but they have everything one can need. Take for instance, the little kitchen in my recently rented apartment on rue Broca, about a five minute walk to the lively rue Mouffetard (where one can walk on old cobblestones to fruit and vegetable stalls, butcher, charcuterie and cheese shops, confectioners, wine shops, boulangeries bursting with baguettes, croissants, sweet rolls and sandwiches, patisseries with tarts, cakes, macarons, cookies  and everything else you can imagine sweet).

Here is my little Paris kitchen:

This tiny space has everything you need to cook a gourmet meal!

 I was looking through the French cookbook section at my local library and I saw this book, The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo.  After earning a degree in Art and Design, Rachel Khoo decided to follow her passion and she earned a pastry degree from Le Cordon Bleu. She has worked as a pastry chef, taught classes, wrote cookbooks, has her own tv show, and writes food columns, just to mention a few; she is just an overall amazing culinary star.

I recommend you visit her web page, Rachel Khoo. She also has two shows on the Cooking Channel, Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook: London and Little Paris Kitchen: Cooking with Rachel Khoo.

This recipe in the book is called Boeuf bourguignon avec des quenells de baguettes (Burgandy beef with baguette dumplings). I did not make the dumplings (but wanted to). I was just too lazy to run to the store to get a loaf of French bread. Plus it needs to be somewhat stale. Next time I will make the dumplings  because I am sure they are yummy.

Boeuf Bourguignon 
Adapted from The Little Paris Kitchen, 120 Simple but Classic French Recipes
Rachel Khoo, Copyrigh 2012, Chronicle Books

2 lbs stew beef cut in 6 or so big chunks
3-4 tbsp all purpose flour

2 tbsp vegetable oii
5 oz bacon, cubed
10 button onions or shallots
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 bay leaf
a bunch of flat leaf parsley stalks
1 sprig each of thyme and rosemary
3 cloves (missing these, so I used about 1/8 tsp ground cloves)
10 peppercorns, crushed
2 c red wine
1 1/4 c water
1 tbsp tomato paste (out of this too, so I substituted ketchup)
pinch of sugar

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Dust the meat with  2 tbsp of the flour.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or oven-proof casserole over high heat and saute the meat in batches till brown. Remove each batch, then fry the bacon, onions, garlic, herbs and spices in the same pan until golden brown.

Return the meat to the pan and add the wine, water, tomato paste and sugar, scraping up the caramelized bits to add flavor. Cover, place in the oven and cook for 3 hours or until the meat is tender and almost falling apart.

Use something more hearty than this young wine (what I had on hand).

About 20 minutes before the meat was ready, I added cleaned button mushroom caps, baby white potatoes and blanched pearl onions.

Smelling good!

Served with a crusty baguette (or Red Lobster cheese biscuits in my case) this is a delicious and hearty one pot meal. If you want to, make the stew the day before serving to let the flavors develop. I was too impatient!

The sauce is very very delicious. Would be even better had I used a good burgandy wine!

You don't even need to thicken the sauce as it is just perfect having cooked and reduced over 3 hours of cooking. How easy! This is the perfect stew for a chilly fall evening. Add a nice green salad and a bottle of French red.  Fabulous!




 

The French Connection

I recently (Sunday) returned from a trip to France (Paris) and Germany (Stuttgart), and while trying to get back into the swing of things here in the US, I have been suffering from some serious French patisserie and confectionery withdrawal.

Luckily, before I left, I ordered a copy of À la Mère de Famille ("the mother of the family") from Amazon.  À la Mère de Famille is Paris' oldest sweet shop (founded in 1761) and has been in business for over 250 years. It has multiple locations in Paris and most recently, published their French cookbook in English.

 The cookbook features cakes and pastries, chocolates, candy making, jams and spreads, syrups, cookies, tuiles and meringues, frozen treats and candied fruits.

This is one of the easiest and quickest cookie recipes you can make, as it only requires 4 ingredients!

How easy can this be?

Almond croquants (croquant means "crunchy) are a crunchy almond and egg white cookie. The resulting baked cookie is a light, chewy, and (obviously) crunchy delight. 

Ooh la la!

You can add a bit of citrus zest or flavor the cookie batter with orange flower water, as suggested by the book, or you could also dip or drizzle the cookie in chocolate. I left these naked, but definitely will make them again with the above variations.

My take...as stated in the book, 10 minutes prep time, 15 minutes to bake...5 stars!

Recipe based on: Almond Croquants by À la Mère de Famille, Recipes from the Beloved Parisian Confectioner by  Julien Merceron, Chronicle Books, 2014 (English version).

Ingredients:
2 egg whites
1 c plus 2 tbsp sugar
1/3 c plus 1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 1/4 c sliced almonds

Adjust the oven racks to the upper and lower-middle position and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper or use a silicone baking pad.

Batter: In a large bowl, add the sugar to the egg whites with a spatula. Sift in the flour. Gently fold in the almonds, being careful not to break them.

Careful, do not break the almonds!

 Using a tablespoon, place mounds of batter on the cookie sheet 2" apart.

I probably could have spaced these better.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden (my oven is quite accurate, but I only baked these for 13 minutes). Let cool before removing from baking sheet.

The recipe says the yield is 30 cookies; I used a tablespoon to measure and got 20 cookies. Perhaps I needed to level the tablespoon off a bit?

Sweet!

Perfect with a cup of café crème in one of my café au lait bowls found at the
Le marche aux Puces de Vanves (one of the flea markets) during my trip to Paris.

Reminds me of Paris.

This is a great recipe to make if you want easy preparation and quick gratification! 

If you have a chance, be sure to check out the blog, Paris Breakfasts. My best friend and I were lucky to meet Carol Gillott, the author of this blog, on our trip to Paris. Carol is a very talented watercolorist and she writes and paints about her life and adventures (especially food) in Paris. My friend and I were recently mentioned in her blog when we introduced her to City Pharma (a mecca for French beauty products) and when she introduced us to Les Deux Magots. You can read all about it here.