French · Main
Croque Madame
The brasserie croque built properly — Mornay inside and out, ham stacked thin, fried egg on top; a knife-and-fork lunch, not a sandwich
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
- Pain de mie or sourdough, 1.5 cm slices — 8 (about 400 g)
- Cooked ham, thin slices — 240 g
- Gruyère, grated — 200 g
- Unsalted butter — 70 g
- Plain flour — 25 g
- Whole milk — 300 ml
- Dijon mustard — 15 g
- Nutmeg — 0.4 g
- Eggs — 4
- Fine salt — 5 g; black pepper 1 g
- Chives — 6 g
Method
- Mornay: melt 25 g butter, add flour, cook 2 min; whisk in milk gradually; simmer 3 min. Off heat add 80 g Gruyère, Dijon, nutmeg, salt.
- Butter the bread on the outside faces with 25 g butter.
- Build: bread, thin Mornay layer, ham, 60 g Gruyère shared, bread.
- Toast in a pan over medium heat, 3 min per side, until golden.
- Top each croque with Mornay and remaining Gruyère; grill at 240 °C for 3–4 min until blistered bronze.
- Fry eggs in remaining butter, basting, until whites set and yolks tremble.
- Crown each croque with an egg; chives and pepper over.