I'm not even pretending to be healthy here...

Hello, my darling little lovelies. This post will be somewhat of a different format this evening. You see, I stuffed up. Nothing terrible, I promise! You see, I accidentally invented last night, and I didn't have my camera handy to take photos for you! I am so sorry. Truly, because in this case, you would have jumped through the screen to get at what I am about to tell you about.

JP and I have a very good friend here named M. You see, M is from French-speaking Canada, and works for the consulate here in Sydney. Well, he did until today. You see, he got transfered to Colombia recently (Can you say hello vacation?! Cause I sure can...) and as a farewell, I wanted to cook him dinner. He mentioned to me once that he had never had real at-home fried anything, to which I naturally reacted with abhorrence. Naturally. So, my grand plan: make M a fried feast to die for. I pulled out all the stops; Deep Fried Chicken from this post, buttered potatoes, green beans, and to top it all off, Beer Battered Onion Rings.

This is where I started to invent. You see, I had everything I needed except the chicken for this. I had onions, flour, garlic, beans, potatoes... everything. I even had some buttermilk for some strange reason. So on my way home from work, I swung through my most reliable grocer and grabbed some chicken to fry up. Off home I went, super excited about making this dinner. I just knew it was going to be epic. Well, I got home, started cutting up the onions, grabbed some flour and added an egg. I went to the fridge, and....

NO BEER!!!!!


I looked at the clock, and saw that it would be cutting it close, but I could just make it to the bottle shop before it closed. Then I remembered I had already put the oil on the stove. And trust me, the thought of leaving 3 liters of hot oil on my stove top while I ran to the store just didn't sit well with me. I needed to go to Plan B. The only problem was, I had never made Beer Battered Onion Rings before, so there really was no Plan B. I was just gonna look up the recipe online and go from there. Enter Inventive Craig, stage right.

I didn't really even think to hard about what I did. I just kind of threw everything together and hoped for the best. And, trust me, best is what I got. The Onion Rings were super crispy and light, and the batter I came up with was divine! M couldn't stop eating them. In fact, neither could JP or I.

Really it was a stroke of cooking genius. I already mentioned that I had started with the batter when I made the terrible discovery. I briefly contemplated using whiskey, but then thought better of it, as any spirits here tend to cost roughly the equivalent of a small house in Manhattan. I dug through my fridge and saw the buttermilk. And Tabasco. And it was like a little halo of light, with that 'idea music' you get in the movies. I poured about half the bottle of Tabasco and most of the buttermilk into the batter, added some salt and pepper, and mixed it up to a consistency of wall paper paste. A bit thinner, actually. I really was going on a hope and a prayer here. Well, really, just the one time I had seen Paula Deen make Onion Rings on tv, and vaguely remembered what the consistency looked like that I was going for.

Turns out, I am a cooking genius. Make these tonight. And for thanks, I will be accepting donations of the cash variety. Plane tickets to Colombia are expensive, you know...


xoxo Craig

Deep Fried Onion Rings


What you need:

• 2-3 large brown onions (or any variety beside red)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup buttermilk (you are going for a consistency, so make sure you have extra, just in case)
• Tabasco
• 1 liter frying oil
• salt and pepper
• paper towels

Start by turning on your deep fryer, or heating up the oil in a very deep pan on the stove top on medium-medium high heat. You will want it to reach about 190ºC (375ºF). If you don't have a thermometer (I don't) use this method: when you think it is hot enough (should take about 7-10 minutes), put the handle end of a wooden spoon in the oil. If you get lots of little bubbles, its ready to use.

Start preparing the onions by slicing off both the top and the bottom, and pealing away the skin. Cut the onions into rings, about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) thick. Once you have all the slices, you will want to separate the layers to form the rings. Discard the dense center bits. Or save for later use in some other recipe. Its totally whatever. 

In a separate bowl, start by adding the egg. Add salt and pepper, and about 3-4 tablespoons of Tabasco. Beat lightly. Add the flour and the buttermilk, and stir to combine. You want the consistency to be that of pancake batter, and to be a noticeable pick color from the tabasco.

Once you are sure the oil is ready dredge the onion rings through the batter, making sure to coat them very throughly. Drop CAREFULLY into the hot oil in batches, and let fry for about 3-4 minutes per side, until a beautiful golden brown color. Use a slotted spoon to remove the rings to a plate covered with paper towels to drain. Continue until all the onions rings have been cooked. Sprinkle with salt. Enjoy!