Egg in the basket

This article is about the egg and toast dish. For the sausage dish, see Toad in the hole.
Egg in the basket

Egg in the basket with a "hat" or "lid"
Main ingredients Bread, eggs
Cookbook:Egg in the basket  Egg in the basket

Egg in the basket—also known by many other names— is an egg fried in a hole of a slice of bread.[1][2][3] A waffle or custom bagel of suitable aperture can also be substituted for the slice of bread.[4][5]

Names

Variant names for the dish include "toad in the hole", "gashouse eggs", "a hole in one" and "spit in the ocean".[6]

Description

Preparation of "egg in the basket".

The dish is typically bread with an egg in the center and then cooked with a little butter or oil.

It is commonly prepared by cutting a circular or square hole in the center of a piece of bread. The bread, sometimes buttered prior to cooking, is fried in a pan with butter, margarine, cooking oil, or other fat. When browned, the bread is flipped, and the egg is cracked into the "basket" cut into the toast. Alternatively, the egg may be dropped into the bread before the bread is browned. The time the egg is placed in the bread is dependent on desired consistency.

To obtain even cooking, the dish is often either covered or flipped while cooking. It is also important not to cook the dish at too high or low a temperature, or the bread may burn before the egg is fully cooked, or vice versa.

In popular culture

The dish can be seen being prepared onscreen by actor Guy Kibbee in the 1935 Warner Bros film, Mary Jane's Pa. They are sometimes called "Betty Grable Eggs", stemming from the preparation of the dish in the actress's 1941 film Moon Over Miami, although the script refers to them as "gashouse eggs". The name "Gashouse Special" is used in the 1975 book The Kids' Kitchen Takeover by Sarah Stein,[7] attributing the name as her husband's idea.

Egg in the basket is made by Olympia Dukakis in the 1987 film Moonstruck, and by both Hugo Weaving and Stephen Fry in the 2005 film V for Vendetta, where the character played by Natalie Portman discusses it. The dish is also prepared in "The One Where Eddie Moves In", the seventeenth episode of season 2 of the sitcom Friends, in which the dish is referred to as "Eggs with the bread with the hole in the middle, a la me!" as they are made by the character Joey Tribbiani.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Books, Madison. 1,001 Foods to Die For. Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-0-7407-7043-2.
  2. ↑ Schrank, Rita (1998). Science, Math and Nutrition for Toddlers: Setting the Stage for Serendipity. Humanics Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-89334-280-7.
  3. ↑ Morgan, Jodie (2004). The Working Parents Cookbook: More Than 200 Recipes for Great Family Meals. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-3685-2.
  4. ↑ AEB.org page: "Fried Egg in Toast recipe."
  5. ↑ AuntiBagel.com: "The Elephant Egg Bagel."
  6. ↑ http://www.waywordradio.org/names-for-egg-in-toast-dish/
  7. ↑ {Stein, "The Kids' Kitchen Takeover", Workman Publishing Co., 1975, ISBN 0911104453}