Croque Monsieur

 

I have been in such a recipe rut as this pandemic and quarantine has continued on for so long. Having to think of meals to cook every day for 15 months has taken its toll on my cooking creative juices.  Even though restaurants are opening up again, I have given myself a challenge to try a brand new recipe once a week.

This week took The Husband and I on a virtual foodie tour down the Champs Elysee where we stopped at a charming French bistro and ate this delicious Croque Monsieur and a simple green salad. It's a very rich sandwich so nothing more was needed. Okay, I'm fibbing a little. Some mousse au chocolat would have been a divine dessert. 

Croque Monsieur

Sandwiches

• 8 slices hearty white sandwich bread
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 12 ounces thinly sliced Black Forest deli ham
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 4 ounces Gruyère cheese, shredded (1 cup)     

Mornay Sauce

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• 4 ounces Gruyère cheese, shredded (1 cup)
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• Pinch ground nutmeg

INSTRUCTIONS

1. FOR THE SANDWICHES: Adjust oven rack 6 inches from broiler element and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil spray.

2. Brush bread on both sides with melted butter and place on prepared sheet. Bake until light golden brown on top, about 10 minutes. Remove sheet from oven and flip slices. Return to oven and bake until golden brown on second side, about 3 minutes. Reserve 4 slices for sandwich tops; evenly space remaining 4 slices on sheet.

3. FOR THE MORNAY SAUCE: Melt butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in milk and bring to boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and quickly whisk in Gruyère, Parmesan, salt, pepper, and nutmeg until smooth.

4. Spread 1 tablespoon Mornay on each slice of toast on sheet. Then, folding ham slices over themselves multiple times so they bunch up, divide ham evenly among slices of toast. Spread 2 tablespoons Mornay on 1 side of each reserved slice of toast and place slices Mornay side down on top of ham.

5. Spread 2 tablespoons Mornay evenly over top of each sandwich, making sure to completely cover toast, including edges (exposed edges can burn under broiler). Sprinkle sandwiches with Parmesan, followed by Gruyère.

6. Bake until cheese on top of sandwiches is melted, about 5 minutes. Turn on broiler and broil until cheese bubbles across tops of sandwiches and edges are spotty brown, about 5 minutes. Serve.

The Versatile Puff Pastry

A recent discovery of mine has been working with puff pastry. Such a variety of recipes can be prepared in a flash if you keep a box of puff pastry in your freezer. It can be used for both savory or sweet dishes. In the savory category, I have used puff pastry as a topping for chicken pot pies and also as a base to serve a creamed seafood medley. Granted, it's a fairly high caloric splurge, what with all the layers of flour and butter, but isn't it worth it to indulge once in awhile?

Included in this entry are two desserts I made over the past couple months. One is a simple turnover and the only trick to this is to make sure the pastry is cut in fairly exact squares, otherwise it is difficult to keep the filling encased. (I learned this the hard way). I filled mine with some wonderful prepared cherry filling. It is important to brush the edges of the turnover with egg wash and press them closed with a fork. Bake 20 minutes or so at 350Degrees or until they are golden and puffed.
The other dessert is an apple tart. This was even easier than the turnover. All that is needed are some nice, tart cooking applies (I used Romes and Granny Smiths) cut into eights. These were placed on top of the squares of puff pastry, sprinkled with a bit of cinnamon, brown sugar and a dollop of butter (because there just isn't enough butter in the pastry!) and baked until the pastry was golden and the apples were soft. So French and so delicious.

Pate Choux Eclairs avec Creme Patissiere et sauce au Chocolate

Bonjour. Aujourd'hui nous faisons cuire un très bon dessert classique français. Translation: Good Day. Today we are cooking a very good classic French dessert. Eclairs filled with pastry cream and topped with a bittersweet chocolate sauce.

I wanted to challenge myself with a multifaceted dessert and this one fit the bill. I went to a number of sources for each component which consist of: 1)eclairs; 2)pastry cream; and 3)chocolate sauce. Each piece of this dessert was fairly easy in it's own right and the pastry cream can be made a couple of days prior to needing it as it can stay in the refrigerator covered with plastic. Those French really know how to cook, don't they?
So here we go.

Note: There is one special equipment requirement and that is a large pastry bag and pastry tip for piping out the eclairs.
Pate Choux Eclairs
1/2 cup water
4 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs at room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine the water and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the flour all at once, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Return to moderate heat and stir constantly until the dough leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball. Remove from the heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating hard until the dough is smooth after each egg. Put the dough in a pastry bag and pipe onto an ungreased cookie sheet in strips about 4 1/2 inches long and 1 inch wide. Bake for 30 minutes or until the puffs are golden. Take from oven and put a slit in the side of each eclair to let the steam escape. Put on racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container if not using within 2 hours.
Above: Flour, water, and butter combined and cooked.

Above: Adding eggs one at a time.

Above: Dough ready to be piped onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Above: Piped eclairs ready for the oven.

Above: Finished eclair shells.

Creme Patissiere (Pastry Cream)

1 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp sugar
3 egg yolks
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp unsalted butter

Combine the milk and 1/4 cup sugar in a saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining tablespoon of sugar until thick. Sprinkle the flour and cornstarch into the mixture and combine and continue beating until well mixed.

Above: the egg yolks and sugar ready for a good stir until it thickens.
Above: Finished pastry cream ready for it's plastic wrap cover and refrigeration until ready to use.

Remove the milk from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour half the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture and stir. Return this mixture to the remaining milk in the saucepan and bring to a boil very quickly, whisking to prevent scorching. Remove from the heat and pour into a clean bowl. Rub the top of the cream with butter to prevent a skin from forming. Top with a piece of plastic wrap so that it covers the entire surface of the cream and let cool completely then refrigerate.
Sauce Au Chocolate (Chocolate Sauce)
2/3 cup white corn syrup
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 ounces (2 squares) unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
6 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 big pinch of salt
2 tsp vanilla extract

Boil the corn syrup in a small saucepan for a minute or two, until it forms heavy strands as you drop it off the spoon. Remove from heat and stir in the water. Stir together the sugar and cocoa getting out all of the lumps, then whisk them in the syrup. Simmer, stirring for several seconds until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the baking chocolate and simmer, stirring until melted. Blend in the butter and cream. Bring to a full boil for 15 seconds. Remove from heat and stir in the salt and vanilla.
Above: Corn syrup at a full boil

Above: Chocolate with addition of cream and butter.

This is a very loose sauce and I was wanting a more thick frosting that I could apply to the tops of the eclairs so I took half the sauce and mixed in confectioners sugar until it came to the consistency of frosting.

Assembly:

Cut eclairs in two and scrape some of the insides. Pipe or spoon in the pastry cream. Put top back on. Apply a layer of chocolate frosting over the top of the eclair. Put a puddle of the chocolate sauce on the plate and set your beautiful filled and frosted eclair in the middle of the sauce. A dollop of whip cream would certainly not hurt if you have some around. Indulge!

A Culinary Eggs-Periment

I've never made, nor for that matter, have I ever eaten a souffle. Reading various recipes over the years, they always seemed doomed for disaster. Have we all not heard of the harried cook making a special supper of a souffle for his/her company and it falling before it ever reaches the table? Additionally, it is something that has to be timed so that your guests are seated and ready when the main event comes out of the oven. A souffle awaits no one.

Since one of my goals of this cooking blog is to venture out and try new (and sometimes scary) recipes, now is as good a time as any to try my hand at the classic cheese souffle. I searched through a few of my cookbooks and have decided to go for the recipe included in Julia Child's very complete and thorough The Way To Cook cookbook. Since Julia's recipe is so detailed and there are so many souffle recipes available, I am not going to write out this recipe today.

One of the things I like about the idea of a cheese souffle is that the ingredients are so very simple: eggs, milk, cheese, butter, a few seasonings, lots of air and voila, an impressive dish. I was able to obtain local eggs, milk and wonderful Tillamook extra sharp cheddar cheese, thus practicing my utilization of local products for the majority of this recipe.

In reading this particular recipe, the process seems quite simple. I made a bechamel sauce and when thickened, added the seasonings then the 4 egg yolks after the sauce had cooled a few minutes. I whisked each one individually until well incorporated.

This stood for a few minutes while I got out the much beloved Kitchenaide mixer (Thanks my darling man, The Husband, for the best gift you ever gave me) and beat 5 egg whites until stiff, shiny peaks formed. In everything I've read about souffles, this is a key step. Apparently if the whites are overbeaten, it will result in a dry, tough souffle. The next step was to fold the sauce mixture into the whites. I took a large dollop of the whites and stirred them into the sauce to lighten the mixture, then gently folded the sauce into the rest of the whites using the classic folding method of cutting through the mixture in the middle, going down to the bottom and repeating until everything was well incorporated. The grated cheese was also folded in a handful at a time. The key to this process is to not overfold and deflate the volume of the whites.

This mixture was poured into my prepared dish which I buttered and dusted with 2 Tbsp of parmesan cheese. I then attached a greased aluminum foil collar around the dish using straight pins in order to create a method for the souffle to rise above the top of the dish without collapsing on itself.

The oven was preheated to 400 degrees and when I put the souffle in, I turned it down to 375 degrees where it baked for 25 minutes. Accoring to the instructions, it is imperative that the oven door is not open during the first 20 minutes of cooking or the souffle will deflate like a man in a cold shower.

The souffle actually needed 30 minutes in my oven but it turned out just fine. It was very tasty, airy, perfectly seasoned and most cheesy. It was served with asparagus, tomatoes dressed with a touch of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, crusty french bread and a glass of sauvignon blanc. Though it was a fine dinner, it may be awhile before I attempt again, as it was a lot of work and, call me a redneck if you will, scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese are just as good with far less effort. I'm glad I gave it a whirl and now I can check that off my list of things to do before I die!