Extra crunchy croque madame

Okay, sorry about the obvious cold I've got, but check out this classic French hot sandwich. This is a Croak Madame, which translates basically to Mrs. Crunchy. I love these, but they do tend to be wet and floppy for my taste. So, we're going to try to make an extra crunchy lady. Traditionally, it's a soft white bread. This sourdough looked and felt good at the store. I'll slice it on the bias just to make my sandwich a little bigger. You can use a hard crusty bread if you want, but it will tend to squeeze out the other ingredients when you bite down through it. But this is very soft bread. We're going to need to adjust for that. I'll grate a couple ounces of grier or any other strong flavored smooth melting cheese. Enough to really cover the thing. OMG, look at this adorable butter dish we found at an antique store. A little butter in the pan over moderate heat and I will preliminarily toast the inside faces of the bread slices. This will make the interior of the sandwich drier and crunchier. When I've got a little color, out they come. Another tablespoon or so of butter goes in to make r for the bashimal sauce. Normally, you don't brown the butter, but I think this tastes real good. More like a sawmill gravy from the southern US. A tablespoon of flour. Whisk, whisk, whisk. Cook out the raw flour taste for a minute, and then we can start working in about a cup of milk. This is going to be enough sauce for two sandwiches, really. Bring it to a boil to fully gelatinize the starch. I like a big spoon of Dijon mustard, pepper, nutmeg is very traditional. And I'm going to grate in some parmesan, which I guess technically makes this a mouret sauce. It just intensifies the flavor and makes it brown nicer. Add milk as necessary to keep the texture smooth and spreadable. Taste. Doesn't need any salt because it has the cheese and the salted butter. So, out this comes. I'll give this pan a quick rinse before we proceed. 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I've got an exclusive Memorial Day offer for you right now. 27% off sitewide, plus free bedding bundle with any Lux or Elite mattress order. Helixle.com/regusia. Thank you, Helix. Okay, assembly time. Remember that the toasted side is the inside. We'll toast the outsides next. Sauce on the toasted sides. You can use any cold cut, but traditionally it's ham. And here's my little trick. Lay one half of the slice over the bread. Cover that half with cheese, then fold over the other half. I want melted cheese running through the whole sandwich and holding it all together. Plus, having a folded edge on the outside border of the sandwich looks really nice. It's an old trick I got from Jacqu Papan, my man. More cheese on top. If it were thinner sliced ham, I might do two more slices, but as it is, I'm done. I really think this should be a cheese sandwich more than a meat sandwich. And I do not want it so thick that it's uncomfortable to eat. Lid up. More sauce on top. And then the rest of our cheese. It should be a mountain of cheese that'll drip down around the sides as it melts. If we cooked this as is, it would be a croak msure, a Mr. Crunchy. The MS requires a fried egg. But I'm going to take it one step further and make it a crispy egg. Olive oil instead of butter so I can get it really hot, like just starting to smoke. And then I'll crack the egg in. It should bubble up immediately. Season that baby a little. And then I'm looking for that brown lacing around the edge. I just think this goes with the theme of it being a brown crispy sandwich, but I'm not going to cook it all the way yet. While it's still raw on top, I will remove it to my board. Sandwich goes back in and into the oven at or near max temperature for about 10 minutes probably. While I'm waiting, I notice some wild garlic in my flower bed here. This part of the garlic is the scape. It's the immature flower bud and stem. I'm going to use this in place of chives because I forgot to get chives. And honestly, this is way better than chives. It's super garlicky. Slice thin because it's a little crunchy. Some people just use the broiler on top, but I think baking does a better job of heating the whole sandwich through and getting the inside cheese to melt. When it's almost, but not quite brown enough, I will put my egg on top and let it finish cooking in the oven. That helps the egg melt into the cheese a little and merge with the sandwich. Now would be a good time to turn on the broiler and just cook until the yolk is wiggly. I want it to run over the sandwich like a sauce when we cut it. Greenery on top. Slice on through. And you can see how thoroughly melted we are on the inside. Glorious. Some people eat it with a knife and fork for good reasons. You eat your madame as cleanly or as sloppily as you all desire.