France and the Alps · Volume 12, Choucroute, Bière de Garde and the Double Border
Welsh
The Nord
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Researched
- 10 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Melted cheddar, sometimes partly or wholly replaced with Maroilles for a stronger, more distinctly northern version, is melted slowly with beer, mustard and pepper, poured over toasted bread and thick ham, then gratinéed, almost always served with chips and often a fried egg, welsh complet. The specific claim that this dish arrived in the Nord "via the Côte d'Opale" from Wales rests on a single low-authority source and is not corroborated by any historical account found for this chapter.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 15 minutes.
Ingredients
- 300 g cheddar, grated, or half cheddar and half Maroilles
- 150 ml bière brune
- 1 tbsp mustard
- to taste pepper
- 4 slices toasted bread
- 4 slices thick ham
- as needed, to serve chips, to serve
- 4 eggs, fried, optional
Method
- Melt the cheese slowly with the beer and mustard in a pan over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Season with pepper.
- Lay the ham on the toast, on a heatproof plate.
- Pour over the cheese sauce.
- Grill until bubbling and lightly browned.
- Serve with chips and, for the full welsh complet, a fried egg on top.
What a modern chef changes
The Maroilles given room to actually taste of something.
Rung 5.
Method
- Use a genuinely well-affined Maroilles for at least half the cheese, sourced from a specialist rather than a supermarket, so the sauce carries real hazelnut-and-brick-dust depth rather than reading as generic melted cheddar with a beer note.
- Melt over the gentlest possible heat, never letting it boil. A hard-boiled cheese-and-beer sauce splits and turns grainy; patience here is the entire technique.
- Fry the frites in beef fat, twice, if attempting them from scratch, the same double-fry method this cuisine uses everywhere: first bath at 150 to 175°C to cook through, second at 180°C shortly before serving to crisp.