Onion Strings

We have a restaurant in Canada called The Keg. It’s a great steak house chain where you can get a pretty damn good steak under muted lighting.

Every girl likes muted lighting.

Bo and I used to go there all the time when we wanted a bit of a nicer meal. But then we had two kids. Seeing as we have a conscience, we no longer go there to eat, or at least not very often (I’ll never really say goodbye Keg, fret not). We don’t want to ruin everyone else’s muted lighting meal with ambience provided with one screaming, teething baby, and a wild boy child building a fort under the table.

Yep, we’re classy like that.

The reason we’re talking about The Keg though, is because they make frizzled onion strings that are fabulous.

Here’s a riddle for you:

Bread is to Butter as Steak is to _________________.

Still struggling?

Really?

It’s onion strings. Ok, it may be peppercorn sauce, but we could just change it to this:

Bread is to Butter as Peppercorn Steak is to __________________.

Speaking of Peppercorn Steak, when you make your onion strings, you should really make this steak to go with them.

Back to the point. Seeing as I can’t go out and easily get these, I had to find a way to have them at home. I have, and they’re great. Oliver was quite the fan of them too. I realize this may not be a great thing, but I’m going to go ahead and say that because it’s a vegetable we’ll call it a wash (fuzzy logic is my friend).

First, get a couple of onions ready and your mandoline out. If you don’t have one, that’s ok, just cut slices as thin as you can with your sharpest knife. Keep your eyes open for a mandoline though. Mine is the cheapest thing ever, I got it on clearance for 5 bucks, but it makes thin slicing like this so much easier!

Get all your slices into a large dish. Make sure to break all the individual rings apart.

Cover them with buttermilk and let them soak for an hour. Give them a toss with some tongs every once and a while when you think of it.

While the onions are soaking get the breading ready. In a large bowl put the flour, salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder, baking soda and cornstarch.

Whisk it all together.

Drain your onion slices in a colander (but DO NOT rinse them). Working in batches, throw a couple of handfuls into the flour mixture. Toss to coat really well; you’ll have to get your hands in there to be sure none are sticking together.

Put the breaded onion strings on a plate while you finish the rest. Then drop them, again in batches, into some piping hot vegetable oil (375) for a couple of minutes, until golden brown.