Heeeeeeeey, Crunchy Lady...

Sorry it's been a while.  Ever have one of those periods where you feel like nothing you do is important?  Like you're contributing nothing to the world or that your contributions hold no value to anyone outside of yourself?  Yeah, that's been 2013 in a nutshell so far.  But enough about me, let's talk about this...

That, my friends, is a croque-madame, and I'm hoping that it will change the way you think about grilled cheese sandwiches.  First, a little backstory...

The grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich is known in France as a croque-monsieur, or, if you pardon my French translation, "Mr. Crunch."  It's become such a staple dish for the French that the English feel the need to make fun of them for it.  At its best, it's bold ham and fancy cheese (usually Gruyère), grilled between fresh white bread and topped with béchamel sauce, then broiled until the sauce starts to brown.  At its worst, it's a Croque McDo, which just goes to prove that we Americans can ruin anything good.

A croque-madame (c'mon, even your French is good enough to figure out what this means) is a croque-monsieur with a fried egg on top.  It's called that because it looks like the sandwich is wearing a lady's hat.  For real.

Enough talk, let's make one of these bad girls.  First things first: if you don't know how to make béchamel sauce, let me tell you.  If you do, feel free to skip to the paragraph after the recipe (it's like a choose your own adventure book up in here).  Béchamel is a simple cream sauce, one of the 5 mother sauces of French cuisine, simple sauces that are the building blocks of other, more complex sauces.  This recipe is enough for 2-3 sandwiches, depending on how sloppy you want them to be:

Béchamel Sauce

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 cup whole milk, warmed
sea salt
ground nutmeg

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  When butter is fully melted, whisk in flour until smoothly combined.  Cook over medium-low heat until golden, about 4-6 minutes; this will remove any floury taste.  (Congratulations, you just made a roux, from which you can make other mother sauces like velouté or espagnole.)  Whisk in your warm milk a little at a time, constantly stirring and adding milk until the sauce is about the consistency of half-and-half.  Season with salt and nutmeg to taste, then simmer for about 15-20 minutes stirring frequently.  Some recipes call for the addition of a little onion and clove during the simmer process, but if you're in a hurry you can get by without them.  If you do decide to add them, make sure to strain your sauce to keep the solids out of the finished product.

 For the croque-madame, I like to add a little depth to the sauce by grating some good Parmesan cheese (not the kind that comes in the green bottle) into the béchamel, which technically makes it a mornay sauce, I guess.  Leave it to an Italian to make French food better.

The rest of this is quite simple.  Ever made a grilled cheese sandwich?  Boom, you're qualified to make a croque-monsieur.  Ever fried an egg?  Boom, you just got a pay upgrade to croque-madame status.

Croque-madame Sandwich

2 slices of French bread (or Italian, or rye or whatever you have around/like best)
Ham, thinly sliced (I used Virginia ham, but, again, whatever your favorite ham is, bring it)
Cheese, grated or sliced (Gruyère or Emmentaler are awesome, Swiss will do in a pinch)
Dijon or whole-grain mustard
butter
seasoned salt
béchamel sauce
1 egg
fresh dill weed (settle down, Beavis, if you only have dried, that's fine)

Preheat your oven's broiler. Spread mustard on one slice of bread.  Pile on ham and grated cheese. Top with the other slice of bread.  I can't believe I just described how to make a sandwich.  Butter the outside of the sandwich (both sides, again, duh) and sprinkle with a little bit of seasoned salt.  Grill the sandwich in a skillet over medium heat.  When one side is brown, flip over and grill the other side.  Seriously, too much description.  When both sides are adequately grilled take it out of the skillet and put it on a foil-lined sheet pan.  Spoon some béchamel over the grilled sandwich and put it in the broiler.  Check it after a couple of minutes and take the sandwich out when the bechamel just starts to brown.  Fry the egg sunny side up in your hot skillet while the sandwich is in the broiler.  When the egg white is cooked through, remove the egg from the skillet and put it on top of your sandwich.  Garnish the top with a little bit of dill.

This is a fork-and-knife job, people.  For maximum enjoyment, try to get a little bit of egg yolk in each bite. Bon appétit...