gashouse egg

See also: gas-house egg

English

Alternative forms

• gas-house egg

Noun

gashouse egg (plural gashouse eggs)

1. An egg fried in a hole in a slice of bread.
   • 1947 December 4, Cecily Brownstone, “Snack-Happy Yule Eats For The Teens”, in Bristol News Bulletin, volume 21, number 8374, Bristol, Va.–Tenn., page eight:

     She [Dorothy Roe] is sure that the original perpetrator of tihs^[sic] gastronomic wonder was Adolphe Menjou and that in one scene he said, “Now we’ll make Gashouse Eggs,” and proceeded to do so. These Winkeyes, Bullseyes, One-Eyed Connollys or plain Gashouse Eggs are wonderful, particularly during the holidays, served late at night with hot coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate or what you will. What You Need / You start making the Snack by having a lot of sliced bread. Then you cut out the middle of each slice with a small round cookie cutter.

   • 1959 February 5, “Girl Scout Brownies Meet with Mrs. Herout”, in Bloomfield Monitor, 69th year, number 10, Bloomfield, Neb., page four:

     We made gas[-]house eggs.

   • 1970 April 30, “Carbon Cookies 4-H”, in Sun-Advocate, Price, Utah, page 1:

     Nancy Tucker gave a demonstration on deviled eggs, Linda Williams gave a demonstration on breakfast menus using cereal, Debra Gerrard demonstrated gashouse eggs and Susan Zwahlen gave a demonstration on steam-fried eggs.

   • 1972 November 9, Dean Trencher, “From My Perch”, in The Ridgewood Herald News, volume 84, number 45, page 15:

     A special breakfast menu is served beginning at 9 a.m., and the $1.10 special is gas[-]house eggs (hollowed out buttered bread holds the eggs and both are fried).

   • 1980, Barbara Edelstein, The Woman Doctor’s Diet for Teen-Age Girls, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., →ISBN, page 212:

     When my kids were little I made them “gashouse eggs.” Take the center out of a slice of bread, making a round hole in the middle.

   • 1981, Henry Denker, “The Warfield Syndrome”, in Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, volume 3, Pleasantville, N.Y.: The Reader’s Digest Association, →LCCN, page 424:

     “Daddy and I have a favorite. Gashouse eggs!” Alice exclaimed, “If you have eggs and bread and butter, I can make them!” […] While she melted some butter in the pan, she scooped out the soft center of each slice of bread, placed the crusts in the pan, and broke an egg into the center of each piece.

   • 1987, Lorna Woodsum Riley, Movie Lover’s Cookbook: Reel Meals, Wallace-Homestead Book Company, →ISBN, page 7:

     Later, George Lessey cheers their sagging plans with his recipe for gashouse eggs—eggs fried in bread slices that have had their centers cut out.

   • 1989 September 15, “Lunch Menus”, in Chadron Record, 105th year, number 104, Chadron, Neb., page 4:

     Breakfast: milk, grape juice, gashouse eggs

   • 1990 May 20, Carol Leach, “Stagecoach has a continental touch”, in Courier-Post, page 10D:

     And Gashouse Eggs ($2.25), a childhood favorite of Mary’s which her late father Tom Penn used to make, is a popular item. The dish features eggs over medium in the center of grilled white bread.

   • 2011 May 20, Doug Moe, “Memories pour forth at the new Rennie’s”, in Wisconsin State Journal, 171st year, number 140, pages A3–A4:

     […] she was remembering the professor who came into the soda grill Jorstad began managing 50 years ago […] and made what Mary considered an unusual request. “Gashouse eggs,” the professor said. “I don’t know what that is,” Jorstad replied. […] “He started to explain how to cook gashouse eggs,” she said, recalling the hungry professor. […] Someone asked, “Whatever happened to that guy with the gashouse eggs?” Jorstad smiled and said he came around the counter, took a piece of bread, folded it, and took a bite out of the middle, producing a hole. Then he buttered the bread, put it on the grill, and cracked an egg that he placed on the grill in the hole in the bread. “That,” he said, “is how you make a gashouse egg.”

   • 2013, Lemony Snicket [pen name; Daniel Handler], When Did You See Her Last? (All the Wrong Questions), New York, N.Y., Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, pages 200, 203, and 205:

     “What are you fixing?” “Gashouse eggs. Let me whip some up for you.” […] Gashouse eggs are sunny-side-up eggs cooked in the middle of a piece of bread. […] He served up the gashouse eggs, first to Moxie and then to me.

   • 2017, Terence Faherty, Play a Cold Hand: A Scott Elliott Hollywood Mystery, Perfect Crime Books, →ISBN, page 138:

     “How about gashouse eggs?” I asked. “Fine,” Ella said. The better places called them eggs in a basket, but Paddy, who’d introduced me to them, always called them gashouse eggs.

Synonyms

• egg in a basket
• egg in a hole

Further reading

• Egg in the basket on Wikipedia.Wikipedia