Onion Strings

It's been a VERY long time since I posted here about The Pioneer Woman's recipes. The prune cake wasn't the last recipe I did. What happened was I started cooking each week with Melanie and I would post my recipe on my daily blog HERE.I never got around to copying the post to this blog which was my intention.  I'm going to try and do that now, and hopefully this Fall get back on board with cooking from Ree's cookbook. I've heard she's got a cooking show coming out on Foodnetwork this month AND she's got another cookbook in the works, although I haven't heard anything about a date for that one.

I'm not sure how I keep this message at the top of my page, so I may just have to copy and paste it to the last recipe I add.

Melanie picked PW's Onion Strings for this weeks recipe. Let it be known that for some reason I have an even worse fear of frying with hot oil, than I do baking with yeast (see my post on Cinnamon rolls) so I wasn't really looking forward to trying this recipe! That's not to say I didn't want to eat the onion rings or 'strings' as PW calls them. I love onion rings but rarely will I eat them and I NEVER make them at home - I remembered why after making these ones!

It's a simple recipe though, first take a large onion and slice it very thin, then pour over 2 cups of buttermilk and let sit for an hour.

Then take two cups of flour, add salt and a little cayenne pepper. When you're ready to fry, add some of the onions to the flour to coat them, then tap off the excess flour before immersing in to hot oil!

this is the part I don't like, the oil always seems to splash me!

after a few seconds though they settled down and fried up nicely. I had burgers grilling on the grill outside but managed to keep an eye on these babies at the same time. It did take a few minutes for them to brown - not just a few seconds which I was expecting from what PW had said about watching them because they turn brown pretty quick. I did this in 3 batches.

and voila. . . . here they are

I could have eaten the plate full but I resisted and I grilled burgers so we could 'top them off' with the onion. . . .

Verdict: I just love onion rings so these were a hit in my book, but would I make them again, probably not, not for a very long time anyway- the reason being is the whole house stinks of yucky oil after you've made them. I made these last night and I came in the house today and can STILL smell oil a little. The oil in the pan is always gross afterward too and I never know what to do with it. Jason said I just had to pour it down the sink, which I hate the thought of but had no other choice really. Most certainly delicious, Kristen loved them and she doesn't even like onions!! but not something I would ever make on a regular basis.