Gameday Spicy Onion Rings

Today Georgia Tech (the real Tech) plays Virginia Tech at 3:30PM. Just a few hours ago I enjoyed a good omelet filled with cream cheese, sun dried tomato, and sausage at The Social House. The outside of the restaurant looks kinda funny, it’s in a doomed restaurant location (going on 4 places since I’ve been in Atlanta), but it was decent and hopefully this one will stick. Now with my belly full, I am knocking out some stuff around the house and getting ready for some imbibing and cheering for the Jackets.

Last weekend I had some people over for our win against Boston College, and I wanted to grill out while the weather was nice. I put together some burgers with feta and shallots, but onion rings were what I decided to focus on that morning. I’ve only made them once before, and am not sure how it popped in my head, but I’m glad they did.

I pulled up an old recipe I’ve used (which was from the restaurant Zoom in Park City, Utah) and modified it a bit. Here’s what I came up with:

Spicy Southwestern Onion Rings

• Vegetable Oil (enough to fill pot about 1/2″ or a little more)
• 2 cups flour (White Lily preferred)
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp cayenne powder
• 3 tbsp chili powder
• 3 tbsp ground cumin
• 4 cups buttermilk
• 2 large Vidalia onions

First I cut the onions into 1/4″ rings (some were a little larger). Using Vidalia onions is key – they’re the best sweet onion. The Varsity vidialia onion rings is one of my favorites. Then I filled a large bowl with the buttermilk, dropped in the onion rings, and let it sit out for about 1/2 hour. (gack – blurry photo)

While that was sitting I put together the seasonings. I mixed all of the dry ingredients in another bowl for use when it came time to fry the rings up.

The only thing worth mentioning for this step is that for the first time, I used my coffee grinder to grind the cumin. I recently purchased whole cumin seeds at the Dekalb Farmer’s Market, and this step really paid off. When I ground it up, the fragrance was immediate and filled the whole kitchen (a friend who had just arrived asked if we were eating tacos). The cumin flavor was really emphasized in this spice mix, and I thought this helped differentiate the rings from your everyday onion ring.

When I was ready to fry, I would take a few rings out of the batter and coat them in the spice/flour mixture and stage them on a plate where they were waiting for frying. I could only put 5-7 rings in at a time so I had to do 7-8 batches of the rings. I had the oven at 175 degress and placed the completed rings on a pan where they the excess oil could drain and they would stay warm.

I was very happy with the result. They were seasoned very well – the batter was very spicy and the onions were sweet. The texture was on the mark and was everything I was looking for in an onion ring. While the burgers didn’t really wow anyone, I received some high accolades for the rings (awww, it warms my heart). This awesome gameday side is inexpensive, quick to make, and perfect when some unhealthy grease is needed – I need to remember to do this again sooner.