Tuesday, July 8, 2008

One-eyed Egyptians

I know you've heard this before but . . . we have chickens in our backyard, so we have a lot of eggs. Since we have lots of eggs, we have lots of ways we use them. One of my kid's favorite ways is to use them to make One-Eyed Egyptians. These go by lots of names: Bird-in-a-Nest, Toad in a Hole, Hobo Eggs, Egg in a Nest. We call them One-Eyed Egyptians for reasons unknown to me. Whatever you call them, they are frugal, healthy and ridiculously easy - can't get much better than that!

Here's what you do:

Take one egg and one piece of bread for each person (these are great made with homemade bread, and obviously the better the bread, the better the finished product. However, it will work with whatever you have on hand, it just needs to be big enough to fit your cutter and still have intact edges.).

Butter one side of each piece of bread, then salt and pepper it. Take a cookie cutter or biscuit cutter (or a knife if you are desperate!) and cut a circle out of the middle of the buttered bread.

Place the bread, butter-side down, in a frying pan/skillet that you have sprayed with cooking spray (trust me when I tell you this step is important! I have had to soak far too many pans when I have forgotten this step. Eggs stick!) Let the bread sit in the pan for a minute or so. You want the butter to start to melt, this forms a "barrier" so that when you crack the egg in, it doesn't leak out from underneath. Don't forget to put the "hole" on the pan, also. It gets nice and toasty. My kids call this part the "cookie" and it is their favorite part!

When the butter has started to melt, crack one egg in each hole. Salt and pepper each egg.


Cook until the whites on the bottom have set and it is solid enough to flip it over without egg flying all over the kitchen. You can cover the pan for awhile to speed things along.

After you flip them, just cook until the egg is the way you like it. My kids are squeamish and want the yolks cooked hard. No runny eggs for them. We have about as fresh eggs as you can get, but they don't want to eat uncooked eggs. Oh well.

When it is done, plate it and add the cookie. Serve with some fruit and call it a day.

Enjoy!

Jill

8 comments:

Lynn said...

My kids love these. I have not made them in a while so thanks for the reminder.

VaQueenBee said...

I've seen these before, but have never tried them. I'll have to give it a shot! Thanks for sharing.

Kimi Harris said...

I LOVE this meal. My mom used to make this for us all the time growing up. Great directions and pictures. Thanks for sharing! :-)

GeonHui's Bakery said...

Those look yummy! Thanks for sharing!

MommaofMany said...

We have these sometimes. We call them "Peek-A-Boo Eggs, since I serve the cookie part on top of the hole. I have been known to use scrambled eggs when I'm in a hurry!

Good post!

Diane said...

In the southeast, we call this frogs in a hole. We have smaller cookies though, I will have to try it with a bigger hole cut. Keep doing what you do.

Myrtle Beach, SC

abb said...

I've known these as one-eyed Egyptians as well. And this is going back to the early '60's.

Unknown said...

Showed this after I made it for the first time in years to my kids,my dad used to make it for us whilst mum cooked a mixed grill to go with it