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Inspired by the somewhat confusing American concept of 'chicken fried steak' and 'chicken fried chicken'...that is, steak cooked weiner schnitzel style but coated in Southern fried chicken crumb (like KFC), and chicken also fried in this style, but called chicken fried chicken to distinguish the fact it is cooked in the style but without the bones! ... I decided to make...
...Onion rings!
Basically, peel, slice the onions* and sit them to blot on a piece of kitchen paper** while you put some olive oil to heat in a frying pan (less than a centimetre deep, as I like to shallow fry such things). To make the crumb to coat them, mix some flour on a plate with whichever herbs & spices you like to flavour and season it***. In a small bowl or tea cup, beat two eggs gently, and add some milk#.
Then the messy fun begins! I suggest you use one hand to crumb the onion rings, as it makes less clean up (two messy hands = no clean hand to turn the tap on or use utensils)! Simply dip an onion ring in the egg/milk mixture, then coat it in the flour/seasoning mix. Then again in the egg/milk mix, again in the flour/seasoning. Depending on how thick you want the crumb to be, you can do this a few times. Then...repeat with the rest of your onion rings!
When your oil is hot enough (keeping it on medium heat), carefully test it with a crumbed onion ring. Cook them in small batches, turning them over as one side is done. They take a minute or two each side. When cooked, blot them on a piece or two of kitchen paper to remove the excess oil.
I enjoy eating them with a little chutney or spicy tomato sauce and a leafy salad!
This one was actually my dinner tonight! Shallow fried chips of kumara## cooked with a pinch of paprika and dried herbs, raw mushroom, tomato slices and our homegrown cherry tomatoes, with green oakleaf lettuce, a little peri peri sauce (Nandos, extra hot!) and mayonaise. Definitely naughty but nice, with it's mix of fresh and fried!
* A little under half a centimetre thick, so the sweet onion flavour doesn't get fried out... of course, a thicker crumbing can prevent this if you like thinner slices. Also, I don't separate the concentric rings of each slice as I was using them as the main part of a salad...for a side dish, I would make them as individual rings.
** This is to blot the excess water from the rings from peeling them in water. If you too peel onions in this manner, it helps to blot them, as water in the pan makes the oil 'spit' - which can be quite dangerous, to say the least!
*** The amount of flour I would suggest a cup and a half per onion used, a little more if you are making individual rings or like a thick crumb. As for the seasoning, I used a lot of paprika, some black pepper, and a pinch of salt. The possibilities are endless!
# As with the flour, this is dependent on how many onions you are using and how much crumb coating you like. Two eggs and 3/4 cup of milk made well for two onions, two or three coats per slice.
## This is what our New Zealander cousins (and subsequently we Aussies) call orange 'sweet potato'. Try baking them in a campfire or oven, whole, wrapped in aluminium foil, and served hot with butter and cinnamon - it's a real treat, you'll think it's dessert!
