The Croque-Poêlé is the croque-monsieur defined by its cooking method rather than its filling. Poêlé means pan-fried, and that single change reorganizes the whole sandwich. Instead of going under a broiler, where the heat works top-down and the cheese on the surface blisters and lacquers, the assembled sandwich is cooked in a hot buttered pan, pressed, and flipped. The béchamel and Gruyère and ham can all stay exactly as they are in the standard version. What differs is where the crust forms and how the cheese sets.
The result is closer to a grilled cheese in texture than to the broiled croque. Both faces of the bread go gold and crisp in the butter, the interior steams rather than bakes, and the cheese melts into a uniform layer rather than browning on top. There is no lacquered cap, which some people miss and others prefer; the trade is a more even crunch and a sandwich that holds together better in the hand because nothing on the outside has been allowed to scorch and shatter. It is the version a home kitchen without a working broiler defaults to, and the version a café griddle produces fastest during a lunch rush.
The Croque-Poêlé is less a distinct recipe than a technique applied to the existing repertoire: almost any croque variant can be made poêlé instead of baked. The Croque-Monsieur tradition that frames the entire family, including the béchamel logic and the codified naming of each version, is covered in its own article. The pan-fried version's contribution is a reminder that the croque is defined as much by its method as by its ingredients, and that changing only the direction the heat comes from is enough to produce a sandwich worth its own name.