IN THE POT | EGG IN THE HOLE

When I was a kid of about 9 or 10 the girl I was friends with who lived in our street introduced me to a way of cooking eggs that I have always cherished; egg in the hole.  Basically you use your piece of bread as the egg ring (you know the round metal thing you cook eggs in a frying pan with) and the left over middle bit as your little soldier (dunking toast!).  It’s magic.

Runny eggs have to be one of my all time favourite things (a fact I will be reminding the Little Man of should he ever question how much I love him; “I went without runny eggs for 9 months for you!”) and I just adore dunking a nicely toasted piece of bread into a runny egg.

Anyways, every so often I like to make this breakfast dish up and treat us all to something a little bit cool. (It’s great now the Little Man is a getting older because he can have one too!)

There’s two things to keep in mind when making this – get the egg ring hole as neat as possible, although it doesn’t really matter if you tear through the crust as I’ve made it with a broken edge before you just have to be careful when adding the egg, it’s just nicer with a neat edge.  The other thing; thick bread.  I like it with a thicker piece of bread as it makes a nicer egg ring and there’s more dunking toast.

If you can get a bakery bread loaf this is a great use for it, however if you only have access to a chain supermarket than keep an eye out for Texas Toast it’s a nice thick slice and it works for this dish wonderfully.

This is also a great thing to make if you’re camping or hosting a BBQ breakfast (although I have been known to have this for dinner!).

Simple, but effective. (Like me really…)

Egg in the Hole

1 Egg

1 piece of Bread (if you can use thick bread – Texas Toast is good for this)

1 tablespoon of butter

1. Heat frying pan over high heat.

2. Melt 2/3 of the butter in the frying pan. (You can use the remainder to butter the middle bit of the bread if you want to.)

3. Using an egg ring as a cutter remove the middle of the bread. (Just put the egg ring on top of the bread and push down with the palm of your hand. Give it a couple of turns until you cut through the bread. Try not to mangle the bread as this is your egg ring.)

4. Put the outer ring bread in the fry pan and toast up one side of it.

5. Flip the bread when toasted to your liking and then crack an egg into the middle of the bread. (This is where your bread becomes the egg ring.)

6. Put the middle piece of bread in to the pan and toast it up on both sides. (I like to coat the middle bit with a light spread of butter because by the time it goes in the pan the butter in the pan has started to evaporate and brown.)

7. Turn the heat to medium and cook the egg.  (You could flip the bread ring using a spatula if you wanted to cook the top of your egg, but I like it runny so never flip it.)

8. Remove the bread egg ring and serve with the middle piece.

Note: This makes one – if you want more just multiple the ingredients accordingly.