Brunch for supper

'Supper' is not a term we use much in our family, nor in the country as far as I know. The evening meal is most often known as either 'tea' or 'dinner', depending on the family and perhaps on where or what you are eating. Going out to a restaurant for dinner, staying home for tea. Anyway, supper, I have an image of what a meal of supper looks like and the meal which follows seems very supper like in my mind.

Let's just get right into the recipe shall we? I love this recipe for it's speediness, and yet you start the day before! How can this be? You make a couple of sandwiches, whisk a few eggs and then, well it sits happily in the fridge waiting for the moment you want to sprinkle it with more cheese and shove it in the oven. I say the day before, but actually as I was making this for an evening meal,('supper' sounds perfect) I made it late morning of the same day.

You will find this recipe on Nigella's very own website Nigella.com. The recipe comes from Nigella Express.

I was tempted to increase the sandwiches from three to four or more as I was unconvinced that so few sandwiches would feed the family. Thankfully I trusted Nigella's recipe! We were stuffed at the end of it, with just the six slices of bread. Obviously we need to choose some truly generously proportioned slices of bread here. I chose a bread called Lawson's Traditional Bread ('Settler's Grain') and yes I absolutely was drawn to it because of it's name! Worked perfectly and I suspect is just the bread that Nigella was thinking of when she made the recipe.

My topping looks a little different to that of the original recipe. I had a little leftover mozzarella, which I decided to use up in this recipe, which I combined with the remaining gruyere I had and a little more Cheddar cheese.

CROQUE MONSIEUR BAKE

6 slices ready-sliced multigrain brown bread
75g Dijon mustard
125g (6 slices) of Gruyère slices
70g (3 slices) ham
6 eggs
1 teaspoon Maldon salt or 1/2 teaspoon table salt
80ml full-fat milk
4 tablespoons grated Gruyère, Emmental or Cheddar
good sprinkling of Worcestershire sauce

Spread each slice of bread with mustard. Make sandwiches by putting each slice of cheese against the mustardy bread, and a slice of ham between them. Cut each sandwich in half to make two triangles.

Squish the sandwich triangles into an ovenproof dish approx. 27 x 21 x 6cm*.

Beat together the eggs, salt and milk (I measure out the milk into whatever the mustard?s been in for maximum flavour penetration) and then pour this over the sandwiches tightly packed in the dish.

Cover the dish with clingfilm and leave in the fridge overnight.

Next morning, preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Take the dish out of the fridge and remove the clingfilm.

Sprinkle with the grated cheese and Worcestershire sauce and bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

*I used an oval dish of similar proportions

Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, perfect for any time of day! I was worried the children would find either or both the Worcestershire topping, or the mustard spread within too much, but this wasn't the case - they are 6 and 3 and they ate their fair share happily.