This post is a croque

We do things differently in the antipodes, and it turns out that today is Fathers’ Day. This put me somewhat on the hook to ‘do something’ for the man in my life, the father of my child. Fortuitously, I’d planned ahead (kind of) and bought some really good ham from The Evil Butcher, as the Bloke calls them (they do good smoking though, and their pork is free range, which counts for something.), so it was croques for breakfast. I detoured on my way home from my morning run to one of the many local shops, where I found fantastic crusty Vienna loaf, and more gruyere. I’d got takeaway coffees at an earlier stop (thank you Two Before Ten hipsters) so I was set.

I’m such a cliche, that every photo I take for this blog seems to have a jar of Vegemite lurking somewhere in it. There is no Vegemite in the sandwich, though as an aside, the Bloke thought this sandwich was called a ‘croque monster’. After correcting him on this we started wondering what would be in a croque monster, and Vegemite certainly springs to mind. I might get around to making one.*

I took a radical step and sliced the bread longways, which fits quite neatly in my sandwich press. The gruyere was grated, and while I assembled and pressed the first sandwich, I started to fry the eggs. These folks tick all my boxes for eggs- local, free range, organic. And Graham is good for a chat. The Bloke, meanwhile was telling me a story about an article he’d read in the NY Times of the death of the man who had inspired ‘Fargo’, so it’s all a bit mangled now in my head.

For some reason, I instinctively buttered the bread before putting it in the press. Turns out my instinct was good, as I later found reading this Grauniad article. It was delightfully crisp on the outside. As I was explaining to the Bloke “you’re supposed to serve it with a bechamel sauce, but I don’t have time for that shit, and you don’t like it, so fuck it”. Our croques are au naturel,as is our language, both of our kids have the vocabulary of a well travelled sailor. We can’t figure out why. The article above also talks about various ways to temper the fattiness of this sandwich. I’d already thought about mustard as a condiment, either Dijon, or a seeded one, but again, wanted to go simple.

At this point I feel it’s necessary to point out that the similarity between the Monsieur and the Madame sandwich is so slight as to be insignificant, and given that I was making such huge sandwiches to start with, I could probably knock them both over in one post. I’m not wrong. I did. Kind of.  I started with the Madame, which was fabulously breakfasty; eggs; ham; cheese; bread; butter…a gall stone sufferers nightmare (and this turns out to have been my downfall, I think)

As you can see, I served it with some cherry tomatoes, hoping to cut the fat a bit. It mostly worked, and man, this is a fucking awesome flavour combo. You know how sometimes it all just comes together? Well, this is one of those times. I think if I’d used shittier ingredients it wouldn’t’ve been so pleasing. This works. It crunches, it oozes, it’s salty, and piggy, and the gruyere has such a great flavour. This really is a good sandwich. The Bloke finished his, and then got started on the Monsieur I’d made for the 7 year old, who had rejected it on the grounds that he only likes ‘thin ham, not that fat ham.’ I think it had too much flavour and texture for him.

I found mine to be lovely on its own, and also good with the tomatoes, and again good with a bit of Tabasco. Having finished that, I was craving a cup of tea – something about tea helps with my fat digestion I think. And I’ve found myself to be too full to manage more than a couple of bites of my Monsieur. I don’t think I’ll be eating much more of anything today, and I need another cup of tea!

*Anyone who wants to suggest fillings for a croque monster, please feel free.

Crit

I’m a mother of two boys. I work selling organic produce to gullible locals, and in my spare time I run as far as I can. Oh, and I live in Australia, married to a US citizen.