I can stomach for a sandwich). Saveur and Jamie magazine both opt for the grill, Saveur cleverly giving the ham and cheese-topped bread an initial blast of heat to melt the Gruyre before adding the second piece of bread and the bechamel sauce. The latter toasts the bread first, then adds the ham, cheese and bechamel all at once (he also leave it as an open sandwich -- a croque rarebit , if you will -- an accepted variation, perhaps, but too cheesy for my liking). Given the name (croque means crunch), Saveur's soft, bready version seems both inauthentic and texturally disappointing: as any Welshman will tell you, you really need to toast the bread before you add the cheese or things will quickly descend into a gooey mess. I'm torn: my decision to use bechamel seems to rule out frying the sandwich in butter (which, of course, makes it completely and utterly delicious) but I'm not overly keen on Waitrose's clever use of the cheesy bechamel as a filling rather than a topping which seems to be the only way to combine both frying and bechamel. It seems too gloopy to belong in a sandwich. Perfect croque monsieur Felicity's perfect croque monsieur. Photograph: Felicity Cloake In the end I decide to toast the bread first, as Jamie magazine does, but only on side to mimic the simultaneously soft and crisp texture one gets from frying. I'm also going to brush it with butter, to make it as robustly crunchy