An Egg Cooked in a Hole in a Slice of Bread

[Doodad]

This came up the other day when I cooked breakfast for my wife.

I made the dish where you cut the center out of a slice of bread and fry the bread with an egg in the hole that was cut out at the same time. My wife had never seen or heard of this. She grew up in SC and OH.

My Mom, who grew up in the South, never really made this, but I saw it in the mess halls as an army brat kid called Sunrise Breakfast since it was always sunny side up eggs.

Do you know this dish? What did you call it and where did you grow up?

[CaliPoutine]

Toad in the Hole.

[ElsieD]

Yup, toad in the hole. Grew up in Ontario, Canada.

[Allura]

Pig in a blanket. I grew up in NJ, where the diners and other breakfast places call a sausage wrapped in a pancake a pig in a blanket, so I'm not sure where Mom got it from.

[pax]

See now, I always thought Toad in the Hole was sausages in a Yorkshire pudding, and we call your dish "Eggs in a Nest".

[Peter the eater]

Egg-in-the-hole is what my mother called it, I grew up in Ontario plus a little bit in Quebec.

[cathrynapple]

Egg In A Basket, South Africa

[kayswv]

When I had them growing up in RI it was called "Bunny in a hole" and we still call it that many years later and on the other coast. My husband and I used it for family breakfasts on our camping trips with our children when they were little.

When I run out of lunch ideas I will sometimes make this for us now. As a matter of fact we were discussing planning on having them soon as I have some bread I want to use up and plenty of eggs.

It is particularly tasty when fried in bacon grease along with the corresponding cut out hole.

My husband was raised in MN and he didn't have them growing up so perhaps this is an East Coast/Canada item?

Kay

[David A. Goldfarb]

Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, my mother called this "Rocky Mountain Toast." To my knowledge, no testicles were involved.

[JAZ]

Okay, I swear I'm not making this up. When I was growing up, we called this "a piece of bread with an egg in the middle."

Unimaginative, but accurate.

[slowday]

We always called it a firehouse egg.

Allan

[Restorer]

Okay, I swear I'm not making this up. When I was growing up, we called this "a piece of bread with an egg in the middle."

Unimaginative, but accurate.

←

That's exactly what we called it growing up. The more concise name that makes the most sense to me is egg in the hole, which is what I'd call it now in most cases.

[thirtyoneknots]

Not exactly standard fare here in Texas but we did know these well in Boy Scouts as "One-Eyed Jacks". For all I know this came out of a BSA cookbook and is not a regional term.

[Matt Furtsy]

I'm from central Ohio, and my dad called it a "one-eyed jack."

[MaxH]

See now, I always thought Toad in the Hole was sausages in a Yorkshire pudding

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Yes, that's a typical British-US meaning* and used in US cookbooks. (I just looked at a packet of Colman's Toad-in-the-Hole mix, made in UK and sold in US.) I don't have a name for that egg specialty, but it's a famous one and I've seen it before also, here and there (not online) over the years.

* Quick offhand recipe from experience: Make unsweetened crêpe batter,** season with a little dry mustard, onion powder, white pepper, etc. In hot oven (350-400 F) roast some breakfast-type sausages, say 1 lb or 500g, until browned, about 10-15 minutes. Turn oven temp. to 425 F, remove pan, pour off excess fat but leave a coating on the bottom of the pan, along with the sausages. Return briefly to oven so pan is sizzling hot, then pour in batter to roughly cover sausages. Cook 25-30 min. at 425 F until puffed golden brown. It's Yorkshire Pudding (aka "popovers") with sausages added and an amazing wintertime comfort food.

** 2 eggs, 1 cup (250ml) flour, 1 cup milk; blend until smooth, rest at least 30 mins before cooking.

[TimmDavis]

My mom always called it "Cowboy Toast"...And we're up in the PNW.

[EllenC]

I was taught it's a "Popeye". That was in Colorado. The guy who made it for me told me it started in the Depression and was only authentic if you make it with bacon fat. Yum!

[Varmint]

We call it a "Submarine Egg." I have no idea why.

[Fat Guy]

There's a pretty good Wikipedia entry on this, which squares with what I know about this subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_in_the_basket

Wikipedia says "Egg in the basket" is the main name, but also cites alternate names:

"frog in a log," "Guy Kibbee Egg", "hen in a nest", "Rocky Mountain toast," "moon egg", "cowboy egg" ,"egg-in-the-hole", "one-eyed monster breakfast", "hobo eggs" and "One-eyed Jack". In some places it is known as "toad in the hole", not to be confused with the British sausage dish of the same name.

[HungryC]

Toad (or frog) in the hole (south Louisiana).

[baroness]

I think this was in the Girl Scout handbooks as a camping treat, called Egg in a Nest.

[PopsicleToze]

Mom never made this (southeast Louisiana). The first time I saw it remains one of my all-time movie food shots in Moonstruck.

I make it as a late night comfort food supper and call it toad in the hole.

Rhonda

[shellfishfiend]

This was one of my favorite breakfasts growing up. We called them nest eggs. The round that was cut out was browned up in the skillet and was perfect for sopping up the runny yolk. I grew up in SW Arkansas with a mom from east Texas.

[Toliver]

I grew up in San Diego and had never heard of this dish until about 10 years ago.

I'm curious if it's a regional thing, as well.

[Doodad]

There's a pretty good Wikipedia entry on this, which squares with what I know about this subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_in_the_basket

Wikipedia says "Egg in the basket" is the main name, but also cites alternate names:

"frog in a log," "Guy Kibbee Egg", "hen in a nest", "Rocky Mountain toast," "moon egg", "cowboy egg" ,"egg-in-the-hole", "one-eyed monster breakfast", "hobo eggs" and "One-eyed Jack". In some places it is known as "toad in the hole", not to be confused with the British sausage dish of the same name.

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That was one of the things that got me curious. It seems to be a NE and midwest thing with some leaking into the West with more "western" names. In the NE it carries the pseudo English moniker it seems and gets more creatively (or not) named the further west you go. I never saw this in the South and it seems to have skipped the upper midwest.