Don’s Monte Cristo
This is loosely based off something I caught while watching Rachael Ray the other day. I cooked up my version today and it was fantastic. I’ve tried Monte Cristo’s before, but haven’t been happy with the results.
This recipe rocks. We generally have all these ingredients around the house, so it’s not a stretch to make it. When it comes to the ‘amount’ of the ingredients, I’m not going to get to particular, so in this case, amount of some of the ingredients will be covered in the instructions.
Ingredients
- Dijon mustard
- Black pepper
- Butter
- Flour
- Milk
- Bread (we like Italian 5-grain)
- Cheese slices (we like colby-jack, swiss is good, Rachael uses Gruyere)…anything but American
- Sandwich sliced ham (we like tavern ham, virtinia ham or any baked ham is good)
- Eggs
Instructions
Begin heating a skillet (we use a non-stick skillet) with a couple tablespoons of butter or margarine, we like Earth Balance.
First thing to do is to make the Croque sauce, which is amazingly simple. For a few sandwiches melt about 3 tablespoons of butter in a small sauce pan, put about 1 tablespoon of flour into it and cook over a low heat, when the flour is blended, pour in about 1/4 cup milk and stir until it thickens. Plop in 1 or 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Grind in some fresh pepper. Stir and set aside. It should be thick enough to spread with a knife.
While this was going on, make the sandwiches. On a cutting board, put a slice of bread, schmeer on some of the sauce, put on a slice of cheese, a couple slices of ham, another slice of cheese and then another slice of bread.
Cut into quarters.
Whip up the eggs in a bowl.
Take the quarters, and quickly dip the top and bottom of the quartered piece in the whipped eggs and toss onto the hot skillet. Cook on a medium heat for about 3 minutes each side. Don’t cook it too hot, you want the heat to work it’s way through the sandwich. Flip and cook the other side. You’re looking for a golden brown.
Bingo. It may sound like a lot of work, but it’s really about 10 minutes from the beginning to when the first quarters first coming off the grill and about 15 minutes for a finished lunch for a few people.
And, they’re great.
Lots of substitutions can be done here. Different cheeses, different meats…I think this could be great with deli chicken or turkey slices too.
LATER SIDE NOTE: I’ve had the hankering for these, but to speed things up, I didn’t make the sauce, I just put a little mayo and some Dijon mustard on a slice of bread…and it works pretty good. Calorie-wise, it’s probably about the same. You don’t need too much to get the flavor, though.