We spent Monday doing yard work so there was not time for elaborate preparations. I was going in the direction of grilled cheese sandwiches while Alice was reading Bon Appetit, to which we are subscribed, thanks to the kindness of our friends The Poling-Millers. Anyway, she suggested Monte Christos, which are essentially grilled ham and cheese sandwiches (aka Croque Monsieur) dipped in egg (like French toast) and fried in butter. We didn’t have ham but we did have salami and some Sini Fulvi Montegrappa, a nutty tasting Italian cheese, which seemed like a promising combo. We didn’t have any sliced bread strong enough to hold all this together so Alice went out to get some and came back with sourdough and two varieties of potato chips.
Sandwich assembly couldn’t be simpler. I put Dijon mustard on each slice, but you could add mayonnaise. The BA recipe had you adding a quince spread, pushing the sandwich toward the sweet side of things, and I thought about using some apple compote, which would have done something similar. Anyway, add your ham slices and cheese. Meanwhile, scramble eggs in a pie dish or whatever you use to make French toast. Hold the sandwich together and dredge it in the eggs. Turn, and do the other side. Be careful here to make sure your soaked bread doesn’t give way. Transfer to a large skillet and fry in 1-2 T. butter. The temperature needs to be low enough that the cheese has time to melt before the outside is cooked too much.
We made a TV dinner out of the sandwiches, a garden salad, potato chips bottle of white Vacqueyras. See photo (my barbeque chips not pictured). There is a lot of salad on the menu right now. The lettuce is getting restless and wants to bolt.
As I mentioned, I was outside most of the day but I did have some whole grains (polenta, wheat bran, and cracked wheat) soaking to add to Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Extraordinaire. A few tablespoons of cooked rice also gets added when you make the dough. Here is a picture. The bread is very moist and so toasts slowly but it is extremely good.
Looks great. We had one of our favorites last night, tournedos à la Touranguelle. It's basically just filets browned in butter and olive oil, 3 - 4 minutes on each side depending on thickness. The you deglaze the pan with a white wine, browned shallot, and butter reduction. Keep the filets warm in the oven on some thin pieces of white toast, and then pour the resulting sauce over the filets and let it and the juices soak into the toast. We had baked potatoes and steamed zucchini with herbes de provence on the side and washed it down with a nice little Fleurie.
ReplyDeleteIt's not hard and always tasty. There's a more complicated version with cognac, mushrooms, and cream that I want to try soon.