Tommy and I have quite a few large onions waiting to be used. Last night we put one to good use by making onion rings. I didn’t want to have to deal with the hassle and the heat of frying, so I opted for oven-fried onion rings instead. I knew that there was a big risk in doing these in the oven: Onion rings are supposed to be FRIED! They are pretty simple to make, just dip in batter, pan fry for 1 minute on each side, then put in the oven for 15 minutes. After taking them out of the oven, I thought that these were going to be a prime candidate for But We Suck At Cooking. However, Tommy and I dished them onto our plates and decided to suck it up and eat away. One bite was all it took for me to fall in love with these. The batter was tasty, the onion was tasty, and they were cooked properly through… They didn’t look pretty, but they tasted great. I think that this is a good recipe if you’re trying to avoid frying stuff. Some of the reviewers complained about all of the batter sticking to the pan instead of to the onions during the pan fry step, so I added a bit of sour cream to the batter to thicken it up a bit.
Oven Fried Onion Rings
Ingredients
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 large sweet onion, cut crosswise into 1/3-inch-thick slices
1 tablespoon olive oil
Preparation
Preheat oven to 450°F. Separate onion slices into rings and pick out the 12 largest, reserving remainder for another use.
Whisk together egg white, buttermilk, sour cream, flour, salt, and cayenne in a shallow bowl until smooth. Add onion rings to the mixture, making sure onion rings are coated well. Let onion rings sit in the batter in the refrigerator for a few hours or until ready to use (you don’t have to let the onion rings sit in the batter, but I chose to do this in hopes of the onion absorbing some of the batter).
Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Working in batches of 4, cook onions in skillet until golden brown, about 1 minute on each side. (Use 1 teaspoon oil per batch.) Transfer rings as browned to a lightly oiled shallow (1-inch-deep) baking pan.
Bake rings in middle of oven, turning once, until crisp and deep golden, 15 minutes total.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Gosh, haven’t had onion rings since I gave up fried foods - LONG ago - but while I always bake potatoe “fries”, (DUH), I never tried baking onion rings! Thanks - definitely have to give this a try.