Posts from — March 2009

Droooooool.

For the second night in a row, I ate a BLT for dinner and stumbled upon this gem while surfing the web.  Scanwiches is a sweet website dedicated to scanning sandwich halves, which is totes brill.  I just wonder if creator, Jon Chonko, licks the scanning bed when he’s done or uses Windex.

PS Staring at sandwiches while you eat one is pretty meta, not to mention AWESOME.  I recommend trying it at your lunch hour.

One of my fav things to make as a quick snack is grilled cheese, but since they are rarely satisfying and I usually end up eating about 4 of them at once … I found myself searching for a similar alternative.  There are about a bazillion varieties of grilled cheese in all of international cuisine but one of the tastiest is obvs the yummy French version, croque-monsieur.  It is basically a ham and cheese sandwich topped with gooey cheese sauce.  BOOM! Amazing.

When I still lived in NY, I lived a couple doors down from this French bistro and I would always order these delivery because I’m a lazy fuck.  And they would ALWAYS make me repeat the address again as if to say “Seriously, fatty, really?  You live at 239?  You realize this is 249, right?” — this was always embarrassing but not as bad as when I would order sushi from the place downstairs and give the SAME address, and then just sigh and say “I know.  I live upstairs.”

I digress.  So anyway, the only thing that could make a croque-monsieur even BETTER is the addition of a runny egg on top, thus making it a croque-madame.  Wikipedia says that the name comes from the egg looking like a lady’s hat, but I think it’s because the egg looks like a boob.

• 2 slices of good bread (I’m obsessed with this olive-oil rosemary number from Harris Teeter)
• a couple of slices of good ham (I suggest Virginia or Black Forest, but no need to get fancy)
• a couple of slices of Gruyere (you can use another kind of cheese, but I wouldn’t – Gruyere is the BEST in this), shredded also works
• 1 egg
• a pat of butter
• salt and pepper to taste

[OK, so there are complicated ways to make this sandwich that involve making a bechamel cheese sauce for the top, but srsly this is just as good and is easy enough for even my most retarded friends (Hi, Raya!)  When I first tried making this sandwich, I would do it all on the griddle, but for some reason the cheese wouldn't get as melty as I would like, so I figured out this griddle-toaster oven combo that works like a charm.]

1. Melt the pat of butter in your pan, griddle, whatevs over medium high heat.  When it starts to bubble, add your 2 slices of bread and swirl them around a bit to make sure the butter really soaks in there good.  Wait for the bread to become crisp and golden (this usually takes anywhere between 2-4 minutes).  Flip ‘em over and crisp a little on the other side.  Really only one side of the bread has to look decent since the other side will be on the inside of the sandwich.  While this is going, put your toaster oven up to broil to warm up.

2.  Take one slice of the toasted bread, and put your ham and cheese on it.  Throw that junk under the broiler ’til its a nice bubbly, melty cheese magma.  At this point, if you wanna get really fat kid, you can throw the other slice of bread on there and then top the whole thing with more cheese.  Stick the whole thing under the broiler and wait for the cheese to get crusty and brown, but still cheesy.  (Clearly, I never fail to omit this step, but I ran out of cheese so the croque-madame in the photos has no cheese hat.)

3. While your oven’s doing it’s magic, now would be a good time to cook your egg.  I know eggs are scary for some, especially if you only ever do the scrambled thang, but seriously, it’s not that hard.  And it makes the sandwich so much more filling/delicious.  But if you wanna just stop at step 3, be my guest (chump).  Put your pan over lowish heat, and crack your egg into a separate bowl.  Once you get good at this, you can just crack them right in the pan, but … baby steps.

4.  Slide the egg carefully into the pan (don’t break the yolk, dummy).  Let it sit there ’til the white starts bubbling, THEN, throw a couple of tablespoons of water in there and cover the pan with a lid.  It’s fun to watch the water boil up and steam up the lid while the egg does a little dance.  Keep the lid on there for like 2 minutes.  When you lift it up, the yolk should be somewhat set, but def NOT pale.

5.  Now, bite the bullet, and flip that shit over.  It will be scary, and you will probs fuck it up, but eventually you will be able to flip it without feeling like you have gorilla hands.  If you use a big spatula and slide the egg all the way onto it, then tilt your pan upwards toward it, you will eliminate the space in which your egg has to free-ball thru the air.  This will up your odds of successful over-easy eggery.  Absolutely don’t try to flip it flapjack style, you monkey.

6.  If your yolk isn’t running all over the pan, then congrats!  Let it sit there for 30 seconds and then slide it on top of your hot sandwich.  Salt and pepper your masterpiece.  Prepare yourself for eggy, cheesy, hammy goodness.

Pardon my French, but this is a fucking good sandwich.