Also known as egg in the hole, egg in the basket is cooked by cutting a hole at the center of a bread slice, cracking an egg into the hole and cooking them in fat.
Cook’s notes
How exactly? You take a piece of bread, you use a cookie cutter (or even the rim of a small drinking glass) to make a hole in the center, you toast one side of the bread in a frying pan, you flip it then crack a whole egg right into the hole.
By the time the other side of the bread is toasted, the egg is cooked through. And, by “cooked through”, I mean the egg white is set but the yolk is still runny.
Some cooks prefer to flip the bread after the egg white is set. The yolk touches the hot pan directly and cooks some more. I prefer not to do that because I want the yolk to be as runny as it can possibly be.
Note that depending on the dimension of the bread and the size of the eggs (and the volume of egg whites in them), the egg whites might spill down the sides of the bread. It’s nothing to worry about except that the egg in the basket won’t look so neat. You can always trim the excess egg whites or just tuck them underneath the bread.
In this recipe, egg in the basket is served with spicy hotdogs. Crispy bacon would make a good accompaniment too. If you prefer no additional cooking, go for slices of cold meat like ham or pastrami.
Egg in the basket
Ingredients
- 3 jumbo hotdogs
- 1 onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 3 tablespoons Sriracha
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 3 slices loaf bread
- butter
- 3 whole eggs
- salt
- pepper
- scallions thinly sliced
Instructions
- Cut the hotdogs into slices about a quarter of an inch thick.
- Thinly slice the onion.
- Mince the garlic.
- Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan. Saute the onion and garlic until fragrant.
- Add the sliced hotdogs and cook until the edges are just starting to brown.
- Pour in the Sriracha and soy sauce. Stir. Cook until the sauce is bubbly.
- Set the spicy hotdogs aside and keep warm.
- Using a cookie cutter (or rim of a drinking glass) with a diameter equal to the width of the bread, cut the bread slices into circles. Using a smaller cookie cutter (or the rim of a smaller drinking glass), cut out a hole in the center.
- Spread both sides of the bread liberally with butter.
- Heat a non-stick pan. Lay the bread in a single layer. When the undersides are toasted, flip them over.
- Crack an egg into the hole of each bread. Sprinkle the eggs with salt and pepper.
- Cook the bread and eggs over medium-low heat until the eggs are cooked to your specification. Just remember that if you want non-runny yolks, the bread might get too brown. One option, of course, is to flip the bread over to cook the yolks until no longer runny.
- Take three plates and place an egg-in-the-hole on each one. Spoon the spicy hotdogs on the side. Sprinkle with sliced scallions.
- Serve your egg in the basket with spicy hotdogs at once.
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