Per our previous post, today's sandwich is our first foray into the inclusion of meat in grilled cheeses. Since our preliminary research concluded that one of the earliest examples of such a combo was the croque monsieur, it is only fitting that this be the first sandwich of this nature that we try. Apparently the croque monsieur was being served in French cafes way back in the early 1900's, and since we know the modern American grilled cheese didn't start gaining real popularity until the 1920's and into the Great Depression, some could argue that the croque monsieur was actually the original grilled cheese! Then again, I think we'd have some ancient Romans who would beg to differ (see previous post). GGC calls this a "French-Style Grilled Ham and Cheese," but when literally translated croque monsieur means Mister Crunchy-- and since I like that name better that's what we're going with. :-D
This will also mark the first time I deviate slightly from GGC's approach to cooking the sandwich. Scouring the internet for information on Mr. Crunchy (and racking my brain to recall those long ago encounters with Parisian street vendors) I found that a traditional Mr. Crunchy is typically cooked in a broiler with some of the cheese on the outside of the sandwich. As I am scared to use my broiler, the only real modification to the recipe I am able to make is including some of the cheese on the outside of the bread. The cheese on the exterior is the only quality that stands out from my memories of actual French Mr. Crunchies, so I felt good about the decision to slightly modify the recipe's cheese placement.
As usual we start by amassing the necessary ingredients. This week the items that threw me for a slight loop were egg bread and black forest ham. The only egg bread I could find was challah egg bread. As this was kosher, I wasn't sure it was what I was actually looking for where a French grilled cheese is concerned. A quick phone call to mom confirmed that egg bread is basically just a sweeter bread, so if it says egg bread on the label then we're good to go. During the same phone call I mentioned that the recipe calls for black forest ham, which I couldn't find-- mom said this just means it's sweet ham, so I got some brown sugar ham from the deli instead. Hopefully it will prove an adequate substitute. I then grabbed some fresh tarragon, a new tub of shredded Gruyere and some Dijon mustard and was on my way!
Step one was chopping the tarragon-- for this I went to my default "chopper:" a pair of scissors. I noticed while cutting up the tarragon that I wasn't a big fan of the aroma. It was at this point that I decided to only include the tarragon in the GGC sandwich and to leave it out of my personal take on the Mr. Crunchy. That meant I split the 6 ounces of Gruyere into two bowls, and mixed 3 teaspoons of tarragon into one of them.
The next step was slicing up the egg bread. I used a serrated knife to cut it into slices that were approximately 1/4" thick (per GGC). Since the loaf was standard loaf shape it took me a few slices to get into the part of the bread that was tall enough to be used for standard sandwich slices. That meant that I had some end slices to sample ;-) Indeed the egg bread is sweeter than I expected-- in fact, it was sweet enough to eat on its own and reminded me of Hawaiian bread.
As usual, the next order of business was evenly spreading the cheese onto four slices of bread that has been buttered on one side.
Then I distributed 1/4 pound of ham onto the cheese and bread and was ready to sandwich them shut, but...
"Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?" Why yes, yes I do! I couldn't complete the sandwich without adding about 1/2 tablespoon of Grey Poupon to each sandwich.
Then it was off the plate and into the frying pan for sandwich number one. I cooked it covered for about two minutes before flipping it and cooking it on the other side for a minute. From there I kept flipping it back and forth in an effort to get the cheese to melt fully, but since the bread was so soft it started to char pretty quickly. I think this is another example of my stove just being too hot! I turned the heat almost all the way down to low in hopes that low and slow really would be the way to go. The sandwiches still ended up looking black, but not smelling or tasting burned by any means.
Then it was time for my take on the Mr. Crunchy, but how to get the cheese to adhere to the outside of the sandwich? My first effort was spreading a little bit of butter on the outside of the sandwich and sticking some of the leftover Gruyere to it. However, immediately upon trying to put it in the pan, most of it fell off. That didn't matter, though, because I could still put the sandwich right on top of the cheese and wait for it to melt to the bread. Once this was done I could wedge my spatula between the sandwich and the pan and flip the sandwich with no problem.
*Commence tangent.* I would like to take this moment to extol the virtues of a non-stick pan. When I read in GGC that you should use a non-stick pan, I assumed that this would be basically the same as using a pan that you've greased with Pam or butter or something. WRONG! Non-stick pans are a miracle! In the past whenever cheese fell into the pan it inevitably burned and stuck to the pan only to be scraped off by me during the washing process. As you just read, the cheese that "stuck" to the pan actually easily comes right up once you're ready to flip the sandwich! And cheese fried right in the pan tastes DEEELICIOUS! *Tangent completed.*
For the second sandwich side, I just sprinkled some cheese directly into the pan while the sandwich was mid air and made sure to flip the sandwich directly onto the cheese. Immediately I could see a big advantage to the cheese coating-- it makes a sort of seal between the bread and the pan that allows you to cook the sandwich for longer on each side without burning it. This ensured that I could really melt all the cheese on the inside without charring the exterior.
While I was cooking it occurred to me that our gooeyness ratings may be effected by the fact that I have to cook each sandwich individually and while waiting to finish all the sandwiches the ones cooked first cool and lose their gooeyness. To combat this I've decided to try a makeshift sandwich warmer next week by using my flat griddle pan on a low heat to keep the sandwiches warm while I cook (that or I'll just start eating them before I finish cooking them all :-p).
Anyway, at long last all the sandwiches were ready for tasting, so on to the reviews:
Great Grilled Cheese Mr. Crunchy: Colin's first reaction to this sandwich: "Ooh, it's like a melt!" And indeed it is. I tried this version before the other and was immediately overwhelmed by the kick of the mustard. I think the tarragon enhanced the taste of the mustard and ended up giving the sandwich most of its pungent taste, and I honestly didn't like it that much (but perhaps this is because I'm not a huge mustard fan). I could taste some of the underlying sweetness that was supposed to be created by the egg bread and sweet ham combination, but it was definitely overtaken by the mustard/tarragon. Overall the mustard taste ended up being too strong for me, but Colin was a fan (then again he likes spicier food than I do-- and he was sick this week so his senses of smell and taste were impaired). In fact, Colin pointed out that he liked adding EVEN MORE mustard to the sandwich to further cut the sweetness (he also commented that it would go well with tomato... there's a shock)!
Colin's concluding point was that one sandwich was very mustardy and the other was very cheesy, so an ideal sandwich would combine these two qualities to make a mustardy grilled ham and cheese with additional cheese on the outside. I suppose that is best left for a future experiment.
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich: | GGC Mr. Crunchy | My Mr. Crunchy |
Gooey-ness: | 2 | 3 |
Aroma: | 2 (sweet) | 2 (cheesy) |
Appearance: | The GGC sandwich turned black quickly, but didn't feel too charred and hard. My sandwich looked more orange than I would have guessed and had a harder outside, but in a good and cheesy way. | |
Taste: | C+* | B |
* With strong objection from Colin-- he votes B-. I say C+ since I wouldn't make this sandwich for myself again, but it still tasted fine.
Gooey Scale | Aroma Scale |
| 1 = still cold/hard | 1 = can’t smell a thing |
| 2 = slightly melted but still firm | 2 = tender waft |
| 3 = melted evenly | 3 = makes your stomach growl |
| 4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite) | 4 = strong scent |
| 5 = runny | 5 = overpoweringly pungent |
| 6 = sloppy mess! |
Stay tuned next week when we continue our European grilled cheese adventures with a Dutch grilled cheese!
Those sandwiches look delicious - you captured the picures perfectly! I wanted to reach out and grab a Mister Crunchy for myself. Will next week's sandwich have little wooden shoes instead of a beret since it's Dutch? Moo
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