Recipe #253: Croque Monsieur

All I could think while I ate this is that it's the exotic love child of grilled cheese and biscuits and gravy.  ...except ham instead of sausage.   Oh man...  I linked to this through foodgawker.com, which led me to a great blog called travelcooktell.com.  I only made two sandwiches instead of three, but kept the same measurements for the sauce and cheese. I used a good loaf of Italian bread, sliced thick.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp butter, plus softened butter for bread
• 1 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• Pinch of nutmeg
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1½ cups gruyère or emmental cheese, grated
• ½ cup mozzarella
• 6 slices bread  (I used 4)
• 6 slices ham  (I used 4)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C)
2. For the sauce:
3. In a saucepan melt butter. Add flour, stirring constantly until smooth, about 2 minutes. Slowly add milk, stirring continuously, and cook until the mixture thickens a little and is lightly golden.
4. Remove from heat and add mozzarella, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
5. Lightly and evenly butter bread slices, place them in a baking pan and put it in the oven for 3 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and place the ham slices and about ⅓ cup Gruyère cheese on 3 of the bread slices. Top each with one of remaining bread slices.
7. Spread sauce to cover the top of each sandwich (crusts, too). Sprinkle evenly with the remaining cheese.
8. Bake the sandwiches for about 5 minutes then place under lit broiler until cheese mixture on top is bubbling and lightly browned, about 3 minutes.