Beer Battered Onion Rings

I really shouldn’t be posting up this recipe. This will probably be more of a cautionary tale.

I don’t know how it happened, it’s not like I’ve never fried anything in a pan before. I’ve made little donut things for Passover…I’ve made potato pancakes… I’ve tried tempura…I made churros… I’ve made lots of things by frying them in oil in a pan on my stove.

So…why did the oil catch on fire when I tried to make these onion rings? I really don’t know. But, I almost set my house on fire making these.

I put the oil up on the stove to heat and luckily I put one of those wire splatter covers on top.

I turned around to start battering some of the onion rings, next thing I know, there are flames under the wire splatter cover. Oh sh*t.

I didn’t know what to do – I panicked! I never had to deal with fire before. We do have a fire extinguisher, but I didn’t want to use it since the flames were contained under the splatter cover and then you could never use that fire extinguisher again. So, I called my husband in a panic. While dialing, I shut off the stove and moved the pan, but that didn’t help.

Luckily, being the Eagle Scout that he was, he knew what to do and told me to pour baking soda over it. I scrambled for the baking soda and dumped it on. The flames went out! Success! Of course, smoke rose everywhere and my fire alarm started going off. I frantically ran around the house opening windows and turning on fans. Finally, the alarm stopped, but my house reeked… and it still does a little. Sigh.


I cleaned up the mess… but I still had all of my cut onion rings and a bowl of batter to use. So, a few hours later, I cautiously tried again, this time successfully completing the onion rings.


I was making these because I had used half a bottle of beer making the beer bread earlier in the day. I didn’t want to waste good beer, so I quickly looked for another recipe and came across the onion rings. Simple and easy, plus we had plenty of onions in the house.


I halved the recipe because it was just my husband and I eating these and we definitely did not need a ton of fried onion rings in the house. In the end, they came out well, and we really enjoyed them with dinner that night. Though, I think it will be a while before I try frying anything again. Maybe we SHOULD have put one of those deep fryers on our registry…

Here is the recipe: (full recipe)


Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 eggs, separated

1 cup beer

4 tablespoons butter, melted

Salt to taste

3 large onions, sliced into rings

Oil for frying



Directions



Sift flour into large bowl.

In another large bowl, whisk egg yolks.

Mix the beer, butter and salt into the egg yolks.

Set aside 1 cup of flour for dipping the onion rings.

Slowly stir the egg yolk mixture into the remaining flour and mix well.

Allow the mixture to stand for 30-60 minutes.

Heat deep fryer to 375 degrees F. (Or heat the oil in your pan)

In a small bowl, stiffly beat the egg whites, then gently combine the egg whites with the batter.

Coat each onion ring with flour, then dip into batter.


Fry the onion rings, several at a time, until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels and serve.

A's First Bread!! Beer Bread with a Hint of Lime!

I found a recipe for homemade bread in under an hour in the USA Weekend circular that come with my Sunday paper and I just HAD to try it. I never made bread before, and this looked easy enough, plus I had all of the ingredients in the house.

The beer we had was Bud Light Lime, which I thought would bring a nice tang to the bread. So I set out to make the following recipe - but I halved it, just in case.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 TBS sugar
1 TB baking powder
1 1/2 tsps salt
12 ounces of beer
1 egg, beaten


Directions:

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Add beer and stir with a fork until just combined.


Turn dough onto a floured surface; knead quickly to form a ball.

Place bread on a baking sheet and confidently slit an X on top with a serrated or very sharp knife.


Brush loaf with egg wash.

Bake until golden brown, about 45 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

The full recipe yields 12.

My husband and I both really enjoyed the bread, and I am so happy it came out looking pretty and tasting good!

It really was easy, and I will definitely be looking for more quick bread recipes!