breakfast blogger

My dad used to make these when I was a kid, and now I make them all the time.

Some Ontarians, and other non-Montrealers, call them “egg-in-the-hole”, but that usually refers to a slice of white sandwich bread with a hole torn out. That is wrong.

A bagel is lovingly hand-rolled, boiled in water and honey, and then slowly smoked over real hardwood.
This particluar sesame-seed bagel is from the St-Viateur Bagel Shop, about a block-and-a-half from my home. I like to keep things local, and consider myself very lucky to live in a vortex of such concentrated gastronomic resources. More about that another time. . .

So, to make your Bagelette, you will need your bagel, which you see I already have. You will also need 2 eggs per bagel, and some butter. NOTE: It is preferable to have an ample, and flat, cooking surface that can accommodate your bagel, or bagels. I am using the same cast-iron flat-top that my father used before me. It seems like it was hand-crafted specifically for making 2 bagelettes. Be careful, as a small frying pan will not easily fit 2 bagel halves, sitting flatly, which is essential to the egg cooking properly in the cavity of the bagel.

Today I will skip ahead to intermediate cooking levels and get a little fancy by adding some parmeggiano reggiano, grated onto the bagelette.If you are still in cooking 101, or don’t spend any time with food snobs, or more specifically, cheese snobs, Parmeggiano Reggiano is Italian for “very, very good parmesan cheese”.

Here is a shot of the almost fully-cooked bagelettes.The recipe is fairly simple:

-Cut your bagel
-heat up your pan, or skillet, or flat-top, and melt some butter
-put your bagel halves on the hot surface and drop an egg into the center of each
-when you feel it is time, flip
-enjoy

Throughout the history of the bagelette, there has been some heated arguments as to which side of the bagel to start your cooking. Some more conservative cooks prefer the flat (cut side) side face-down to start, thus not allowing any egg to escape the confines of the bagel. Some more liberal-minded folk swear by beginning their bagelettes with the natural, bumpy side face down, to allow for a greater cooking surface for the egg. There is also the rare cross-section of society that has no political affiliations whatsoever - these people tend to cook their bagelettes with each half facing a different direction. I believe the term ‘I swing both ways’ was originated from this group of bagelette eaters.

Personally, I find both techiques to be equally satisfying.

Behold:The goal, if there were a goal other than eating, is to cook the bagelette so the yolk is still runny, thus allowing the eater to mop up some yolk with each bite of bagel.An added treat is the little bits of fried cheese that may have ‘accidentally’ not landed directly on the bagel during the cooking process. Here is an example of such a casualty: As sad as I was for this poor scrap of cheese, I forced myself to eat it.

And, of course, the money shot. .

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Breakfasts, Montreal, Recipes, Spanky's Recipes, Spanky's Breakfasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.