- Today, we're making a massive croque. Mm-hmm.
(triumphant music)
Hello, everybody, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, welcome to our kitchen.
You ever wanna make a sandwich,
but you wanna make it snappy?
That's right.
Today, we're making a croque.
No, not one of those.
Yes.
You baguetter believe it.
We are making a two-foot croque with this baguette
because the other one that I just dropped on the floor,
the other half actually broke in the car park
as I was walking to my vehicle.
And I'm gonna be very careful with that
'cause I don't wanna break it,
but we might have to take a little bit off the edges.
It's still gonna be two foot.
I don't know why I'm doing this, croque and roll,
but there are so many other variations.
In fact, it's quite similar to a Monte Cristo sandwich,
or just basically a ham and cheese toastie,
but just upgraded with the sauce, with the ham,
all the variants of the cheese.
And we are gonna stick the egg on top.
I'm sorry, I'm gonna go to all this effort.
We're gonna have a row of fried eggs.
What we're gonna do is take our baguette.
We are gonna stick it in our oven, probably diagonally,
and bake it into some huge, gooey, cheesy mess.
(laughs) Gosh.
So the first thing I'm gonna do is halve it
because if I ruin this, just like this one,
I'm gonna have to go back to the shop
and get myself another baguette, aren't I?
And I don't really fancy doing that.
So I'm gonna have to hold (laughs)
hold it in batches steady to go right down it.
Oh my gosh.
So I am just gonna call it a two foot croque.
Or maybe I'll get creative with the name of some kind,
because this, I don't wanna get into a debate
about the specifics of what should be in one.
It's a recipe, it's evolved over years,
and obviously different countries have different variants.
It's just gonna be a big sandwich,
but it should taste good dough.
Now this rack here has got a little bit of a safety lip
that stops things falling off,
which of course is very sensible.
But if I take this out and replace it with a tray,
which fits in those grooves nicely,
might give me, there we go.
Oh. (laughs)
I think we've got a little bit more room
for our baguette now.
(laughs) Amazing.
Yeah, it's still, I don't know if you can see that,
it's two foot right there, so 61 centimetres.
Now listen here.
I'm going to cover the baking tray
and the base of my oven in foil
to prevent it getting too messy indeed.
But anyhow, that's gonna sit in there and let's croque up.
So we'll start by making our bechamel sauce.
Dump in your butter, okay?
And as you see, that is not gonna take long to melt.
In fact, you might want to turn the heat to the lowest,
just so you've got a teeny bit of control here.
I love how I'm saying this as if you are gonna make this,
obviously do make it, but scale it down.
Just two slices of bread is fine, all right?
We're gonna add in the flour and we whisk it.
It's gonna feel really, I hate doing this.
It feels clumpy and horrible, and it sounds horrendous.
Use a wooden spoon if you want.
All right, looking good.
So let's quickly give it a season of pepper,
using some thyme, fresh.
You can kind of call it a thyme machine.
And it desperately wants some moisture in there,
so here is our milk.
We're just gonna bring it all together.
As you whisk that through,
at first, it will feel, "What have I done?"
It'll be like a lumpy mess,
but as you whisk, the flour and the butter
will gradually break down and it will thicken up.
So keep adding your milk as you go
and that will be the sauce done.
(bright music)
So just look at that right now.
Okay, it looks really thin.
I'm gonna keep whisking that away,
and the next scene you'll see,
hopefully will be it nice and thickened.
Can you see that's starting to thicken now?
If you don't keep whisking it,
which I'm not doing right now,
it will burn and capture.
Please do a eye on it.
In other news, quickly, I've stopped whisking it again,
but in other news,
my oven now looks like something
that Elon Musk would send into space.
Foil wrapped base, foil wrapped pan just in case...
Oh my gosh, look at that thickness. Beautiful.
Remember, it will thicken up even more as it cools,
so I'm gonna take it off the heat.
If you do need to thin it up if it thickens too much,
little bit more milk in there, okay?
That's gonna drench our croque.
I don't actually own Crocs.
I've worn them and I understand a lot of chefs wear them
'cause they're quite comfortable,
but I refuse to wear something
that will make my feet look like cheese graters.
However, I do own a pair of yellow Croc wellies
'cause I wore them as a fancy dress Minnie Mouse outfit
a few years ago to Butlins with some friends.
They are insanely comfy
and I sometimes walk with the dogs with them.
If you ever see me walking my dogs at midnight,
which is a true story, I sometimes do it,
then you might see those very Crocs.
Please don't follow me.
But I don't wear the Minnie Mouse outfit
when I walk the dogs.
Saucy.
So not only did I break my baguette at the supermarket,
I also stood at the till thinking,
"Oh my gosh, why was this fairly expensive today?"
It's because of the cheese.
We're using some grated cheddar. That's not too bad.
I've got two blocks of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
I could have got Grana Padano to be honest.
And also some Gruyere.
Oh my gosh, when this stuff is melted,
boy is it worth it.
It's ort of sweet and nutty. Bit like me.
But basically, this is our mothership bowl
and all the cheese is gonna go in there.
It's quite exciting.
Cheese. Oh my gosh.
It's amazing, I don't know if you ever thought about it
when you grate cheese,
how expensive it is every time you're grating it.
It's a bit like buying fireworks as well.
This is sort of like pound signs disappearing.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
I love a good fireworks display, but they're expensive.
And every time I see a firework go off, I'm like,
"Yep, that's a pound sign just blowing up in the sky."
And I really hope I'm not the only person that does this.
If you hear a firework any other time,
especially people in the UK,
other time than November the 5th, maybe New Years,
but if you hear a fire any other time of the year,
you're like, "Oh, that person obviously works
for a firework factory, they're just testing them."
But anyhow, Gruyere Mountain, which I really do hope exists,
goes into our big bowl of ever growing cheese.
Population, two kilos.
And the Parmesan is gonna join it as well,
so let me grate that and that'll be great.
Into that big bowl.
Oh my gosh, there's so much cheese going on in there.
Oh my gosh.
Newsflash, Parmesan Hill does not exist,
but the Gruyere Mountains, it's on TripAdvisor.
They exist, they're in Switzerland. That's amazing.
Yeah. Free holiday.
All right, so my baguette
is out of the space station for the time being,
and this is a little jar of dijon mustard.
You could use like wholegrain mustard
or you could just butter it.
I've seen people that do the sandwich
where they have some garlic,
they just get a clove and run it up and down.
Oh yeah.
But this is basically forming a nice bed layer,
some serious tang.
So that's me bottom, but I'm also,
why not, gonna do the top half as well.
I'm actually using a whole jar up. (laughs)
And what I like about this recipe,
it's the perfect recipe for friends.
I just don't have any.
Ah, I'm no expert,
but I might have bought a bit too much cheese. (laughs)
So for my ham, I actually went all out
and bought some French Torchon ham,
which means when you eat the ham,
your torch that you're carrying will automatically turn on,
so please turn it off, thank you.
I'm gonna fold that ham up and make it pretty substantial.
Oh, look at that. Oh, I missed the end.
There we go. Nice.
I mean, it's not something you see every day, is it?
But (laughs) I hope Mrs. B's hungry.
We need to then build up some more cheesy layer on here.
(laughs) Gosh.
And then we take the other half with mustard already on it
and place it down.
Oh, you beautiful thing.
'Cause that is gonna bite the cheese, grip it.
(Barry gasps)
And let me just take the ramekin away.
It's not actually doing anything now.
There's so much weight in it,
it's like it's found a settled edge.
We've just got to get it into the oven.
Or I can bring the oven to the croque.
It's bowing in the middle.
Oh no. All right.
As a precaution, whilst it bakes,
I'm putting ramekins on there because the weight, again,
especially with that cheese doing its thing,
it's probably gonna go like "Oh yeah, wahey."
And that would just ruin the whole thing.
So ramekin on there, into there.
Here we go. Ah.
Okay, okay. All right, we're good.
Oh my gosh.
You can now see why I've got the foil down there. All right.
(laughs) Oh my gosh. Sorry, camera.
Going for classic 160C fan, 180C gas hob or 350F. Boom.
If you're not sure in life what's gonna happen,
confuse them with confidence, folks.
But where we cross the Monsieur the Madame,
a phrase I thought I'd never say,
we're gonna put some fried eggs on top.
I hate frying. You guys know that.
I'm doing it like right now.
I'm not gonna show you too much, I wanna concentrate.
I don't wanna burn myself.
You could poach them actually,
but I just feel a fried egg, I mean, I hate fried eggs.
I hate them. I hate them so much.
But I think they'll visually look pretty cool.
Just to show you, I've got the eggs frying.
I did put a little bit of cheeky pepper in there as well.
Ready to drape on there.
This smells so good. The cheese is gooey.
I'm worried about getting it out.
I've finished me eggs. It's fine.
I've used this hob for my eggs,
but we're now gonna put a giant croque on it.
Oh my gosh.
I know you can't really see so much
'cause the ramekins are in the way, but wow.
The baguette's shrunk.
Look at this thing. That's amazing.
You can see the colouring on the top,
but we can do something about that.
Ah, oh yeah, it's kind of...
Oh, it's one big device.
So I've just changed my oven to a grill.
Now for those of you who don't know,
my grill is insanely hot, so I've turned it right down.
So it give me enough time so we don't ultimately scorch
this bechamel that we're gonna drape on right now.
Just to cover that top.
I don't mind if it drizzles down a little bit.
Ah, little specks of thyme in there.
(amorous music)
So I'm gonna shove this in my grill.
Get in there.
Let's not forget, oh my gosh that's close,
let's not forget that the fried eggs
are gonna go on top of this.
- [Narrator] 12 seconds later.
- Forgot the cheese, didn't I?
Yes, we forgot the cheese.
We're gonna double bechamel this,
even though that first base started to set and firm
and brown slightly in one or two spots.
I was saying to Patreon vlog though,
I have got a lot of cheese.
If you don't know what Patreon vlog is,
if you can imagine all the videos I do,
imagine an unedited three times the length version,
and that's what Patreon vlog vid is.
So if you're a patron, thank you for supporting me.
If not, check out if you fancy it.
I was saying I've got a lot of cheese left.
And I've also got some bechamel sauce
on my "Back to the Future" T-shirt.
That's going in. Oh my gosh.
I mean, that's not something you see every day, folks.
Oh my gosh. Can you see the cheese bubbling on there?
Look at that!
Ah, ah, my elbow!
No! Ow!
Can you see it's starting to char on the top?
Blooming gorgeous.
I mean, look at this beast. It is unbelievable.
And we start to stick the fried eggs on top.
This isn't a Croque Madame or a Croque Monsieur,
this is a Croque Master.
I think I'm hungry. (laughs)
Croque in French, I legit only know this
'cause I had some French students when I grew up
and that's why I got a C in my GCSE French.
Croque means bite, and I can't wait to have a bite of this.
Just marvelling at it one more time. Oh my word. (laughs)
Let me just see if we can make a little incision.
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
- [Becky] Oh my gosh.
- How's that?
- [Becky] That looks amazing. How are you gonna eat that?
- How am I gonna eat it? I dunno.
- [Becky] This has an egg, one egg per serving.
- Ah, it slid off.
- [Becky] Might need some plates.
- Yeah, and you put your egg on top like that.
- [Becky] That looks so good!
- [Barry] Yeah, I mean I'm hungry.
Wow. (laughs) You wanna try some?
- [Becky] Ah, it's hot!
- Sorry.
(laughs) That's crazy.
Look at that yolk dripping.
Oh, (whimpers) noises.
Where are you starting? (laughs)
- Oh, that mustard tang.
- That's outrageous.
- That's amazing. Yum yum.
- You're getting that hit.
There's a real warming sensation,
the comforting blanket of the ham, the gooeyness,
and the different textures and the strengths of the cheese,
the crunch of the bread, the egg, meh.
- That is so nice.
- It's disgustingly awesome.
Back once again with the Croque Master. Amazing.
So it might not be the most authentic Croque Monsieur,
Croque Madame, whatever,
but we have made a two-foot Croque Master, a Croque Monster.
Croque Monster, two-foot long, fun, insanely delicious.
Our kids are gonna love this.
Especially the one that's vegetarian.
- She'll pick the ham out.
- Yeah, she will.
And she's a selective vegetarian
'cause she likes chicken nuggets.
Tell you what, we had a sausage casserole the other day
and it had vegan sausages in it.
And I was like, "This is amazing." Tasted better.
My point is you'll get quite a lot out of that.
And I probably bought a teeny bit too much cheese.
Thank you for watching.
If you enjoyed this video,
don't forget to give it a like, share it if you want,
and subscribe if you're not already.
See you soon.
- Bye. - Bye.
♪ It's got all the notes, baby, like a treble clef ♪
♪ Cooking up this song like the Naked Chef ♪
♪ I know what you're thinking, British guy drinking tea ♪
♪ But I'm gangster British baby, I prefer chickpeas ♪
I know we're done filming,
but I just thought I'd capture this like natural moment
of us just having our lunch.
- Like being in one of those wildlife programmes.
- "Very rare to see two together,
foraging on the Croque Monster."