Back in action! And in 1/2 of the time it took me to do a follow-up fry last time!
This week's high-frying feast was brought on in part by Stacey L, who has been hounding me relentlessly ever since I got the deep fryer to let her see how deliciously fatty foods are created. She tossed out an idea to try onion rings, but in the spirit of always taking things to the NEXT LEVEL, we decided to up the ante and make an AWESOME BLOSSOM.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of an awesome blossom, they are essentially a whole onion cut into a flower-like shape and then deep-fried. You can find them at chain restaurants like Chili's and Outback, and when done by professionals, they look like this:
Hot damn does that look good!
This week's high-frying feast was brought on in part by Stacey L, who has been hounding me relentlessly ever since I got the deep fryer to let her see how deliciously fatty foods are created. She tossed out an idea to try onion rings, but in the spirit of always taking things to the NEXT LEVEL, we decided to up the ante and make an AWESOME BLOSSOM.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of an awesome blossom, they are essentially a whole onion cut into a flower-like shape and then deep-fried. You can find them at chain restaurants like Chili's and Outback, and when done by professionals, they look like this:
Hot damn does that look good!Now, just deep-frying a giant onion hardly counts as a meal unto itself, so in addition we decided to throw in a pair of cheeseburgers into the mix, also deep fried in order to preserve the 100% crispy theme.
Friends! Fryers! Faithful followers! Read on, and discover the hardships and joy of:
Friends! Fryers! Faithful followers! Read on, and discover the hardships and joy of:
DEEP FRIED CHEESEBURGERS AND AWESOME BLOSSOM ONIONS
Still, I followed the directions step-by-step and kept as steady a hand as I could.
The 1st step was to cut the top and bottom 3/4 inch off the onion.
Next up you take a small knife and cut out the core. Or in my case you take a large knife and awkwardly gouge out something that vaguely looks like a circle from the top-down.
Then, keep a firm grip on the onion and cut it in half (but don't cut all the way to the bottom, stop cutting about 3/4 of the way down). Take that half and cut it in half again, then again, then again, until you feel you've either: ( a.) got thin enough slices, ( b.) can't see because your eyes are watering too badly, or (c.) cut deeply into your index finger.
The end result should look something vaguely similar to this:
Slice-o-riffic!
Now flip on your fryer and let the grease begin to heat! While the oil is warming up, CAREFULLY start to peel back the onion layers. I found this to be a bit tricky, I think partly because I cut too deeply into the onion at sections and instead of peeling back, some of the petals threatened to snap off. They say it's important to try and separate each layer of onion as best as possible, as the petals tend to group together, and it turns out the recipe was right and I didn't spend as much time on this as I should have, which came back to haunt me later.
The oil should be nearly hot by this point, so "batters-up!" (hehe...)
Battering objects still causes quite a bit of perplexion for me... as most recipes tell you how to make enough to batter a small handful of whatever objects you are deep frying, but it's never enough to really cover anything. In this case, I had a giant onion and a large pan, but only a thin layer of eggy-milk-mix. Now I could have made a TON of eggy-milk-mix and totally submerged the onion, but then I would have ended up with about a half gallon of wasted dairy product that I'd have to throw out later.
I decided the best choice would be to lay the onion out in a big flat pan, and I would pour the wet mixture on it and then scoop it up and continue to re-pour as much as possible, since I didn't have enough to dunk-and-drown the onion.
So I poured the wet mixture over the onion, and then gently sprinkled it with a dusting of dry.
Then it was dunked again in the wet (and gathered, and re-dunked) and then sprinkled once more with the remains of the dry.
Now our onion was covered, our oil was hot, and our spirits were high! We dropped that bad-boy in the oil and watched it bubble like crazy! We did a little happy-dance, set the timer for 10 minutes and turned to the next phase of our dastardly plans!!! THE BURGERS!!!
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble!
To begin, there are a few good recipe choices out there in internet-land, but the one we settled on was here (Notice the awesome diagram included on the right)
Preparation was again fairly simple, due to the fact that each time I fry there are plenty of ingredients left over from the previous experience. My shelves were already stocked full of flour and baking powder, the only thing I needed from the supermarket were some spices (in my quest for more flavorful batter), and the onion.
However, in my haste to get the spices I nearly forgot the onion...
... and then in my haste to run back and get the onion, I forgot the cheeseburgers.
Sigh.
I hate shopping.
Anyway, after 3 trips to the supermarket for only 5 needed ingredients, we had them all laid out and were good to go!!!
Mmm... delicious!
First things first, we mixed up the dipping sauce. This was fairly easy. We mixed up what the recipe told us to, dashed in a handful of spices and other goodies, stirred it all together into a wonderful paste and then stuck it in the fridge to cool. Pretty simple.
Next up came the batter preparation for the onion. This differed slightly from normal deep-frying conventions. We had to prepare 2 separate bowls, one with the dry ingredients and one with the wet ingredients. Once these were mixed and prepared they are supposed to be applied one at a time to the onion.
Again these steps were fairly straightforward. The 'wet' ingredients were just eggs and milk
(the exact combination I put on my cereal
every morning!), and the dry ingredients
were mostly flour and a variety of spices.
Once these were made and mixed to my
liking, we moved on to the first daunting
step in the process:
THE ONION!!
Giant onion of DOOM!
Now to prepare the onion takes a little bit of skill with a knife. Not a lot of skill, but basically the same amount of skill most people have that cook food on a regular and healthy schedule. Unfortunately this category does not include me. You can say my skill level hovers right around 'clumsy' at best. Now, if I were attacked by ninjas in a sword-fight, that may be an entirely different story, but in terms of food preparation... not so much.
Preparation was again fairly simple, due to the fact that each time I fry there are plenty of ingredients left over from the previous experience. My shelves were already stocked full of flour and baking powder, the only thing I needed from the supermarket were some spices (in my quest for more flavorful batter), and the onion.
However, in my haste to get the spices I nearly forgot the onion...
... and then in my haste to run back and get the onion, I forgot the cheeseburgers.
Sigh.
I hate shopping.
Anyway, after 3 trips to the supermarket for only 5 needed ingredients, we had them all laid out and were good to go!!!
Mmm... delicious!First things first, we mixed up the dipping sauce. This was fairly easy. We mixed up what the recipe told us to, dashed in a handful of spices and other goodies, stirred it all together into a wonderful paste and then stuck it in the fridge to cool. Pretty simple.
Next up came the batter preparation for the onion. This differed slightly from normal deep-frying conventions. We had to prepare 2 separate bowls, one with the dry ingredients and one with the wet ingredients. Once these were mixed and prepared they are supposed to be applied one at a time to the onion.
Again these steps were fairly straightforward. The 'wet' ingredients were just eggs and milk(the exact combination I put on my cereal
every morning!), and the dry ingredients
were mostly flour and a variety of spices.
Once these were made and mixed to my
liking, we moved on to the first daunting
step in the process:
THE ONION!!
Giant onion of DOOM!
Still, I followed the directions step-by-step and kept as steady a hand as I could.The 1st step was to cut the top and bottom 3/4 inch off the onion.
Next up you take a small knife and cut out the core. Or in my case you take a large knife and awkwardly gouge out something that vaguely looks like a circle from the top-down.
Then, keep a firm grip on the onion and cut it in half (but don't cut all the way to the bottom, stop cutting about 3/4 of the way down). Take that half and cut it in half again, then again, then again, until you feel you've either: ( a.) got thin enough slices, ( b.) can't see because your eyes are watering too badly, or (c.) cut deeply into your index finger.
The end result should look something vaguely similar to this:
Slice-o-riffic!Now flip on your fryer and let the grease begin to heat! While the oil is warming up, CAREFULLY start to peel back the onion layers. I found this to be a bit tricky, I think partly because I cut too deeply into the onion at sections and instead of peeling back, some of the petals threatened to snap off. They say it's important to try and separate each layer of onion as best as possible, as the petals tend to group together, and it turns out the recipe was right and I didn't spend as much time on this as I should have, which came back to haunt me later.
The oil should be nearly hot by this point, so "batters-up!" (hehe...)
Battering objects still causes quite a bit of perplexion for me... as most recipes tell you how to make enough to batter a small handful of whatever objects you are deep frying, but it's never enough to really cover anything. In this case, I had a giant onion and a large pan, but only a thin layer of eggy-milk-mix. Now I could have made a TON of eggy-milk-mix and totally submerged the onion, but then I would have ended up with about a half gallon of wasted dairy product that I'd have to throw out later.
I decided the best choice would be to lay the onion out in a big flat pan, and I would pour the wet mixture on it and then scoop it up and continue to re-pour as much as possible, since I didn't have enough to dunk-and-drown the onion.So I poured the wet mixture over the onion, and then gently sprinkled it with a dusting of dry.
Then it was dunked again in the wet (and gathered, and re-dunked) and then sprinkled once more with the remains of the dry.Now our onion was covered, our oil was hot, and our spirits were high! We dropped that bad-boy in the oil and watched it bubble like crazy! We did a little happy-dance, set the timer for 10 minutes and turned to the next phase of our dastardly plans!!! THE BURGERS!!!
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble!Burgers Ahoy:
While the onion was burbling and smacking away, we plugged in the OTHER miraculous invention that helps keep me alive (no, not the can opener or the iron lung), the George Foreman Grill!! I've got a sweet G2 grill (grill and griddle combo which was ALSO a frickin awesome gift from the roomates a few birthdays prior), and I dropped on a pair of bleu-cheese and bacon patties.
While these grilled we made the batter, following essentially the same steps as we did for the twinkie batter the previous fry-day.
With immaculate timing, we pulled out the onion which was now golden, hucked the burgers from the grill into the batter and then threw them into the oil to congeal.
And since health is important to us, we even included lettuce-wrap burgers, for those who are trying to watch their carb intake or their figures!
Green = health
Sadly, I have no idea how people at sandwich places get their wraps to stay together, the lettuce turned out to be surprisingly awful at holding things, even after repeated attempts were made to tie, knot, and even toothpick-stab them in place.
While these grilled we made the batter, following essentially the same steps as we did for the twinkie batter the previous fry-day.
With immaculate timing, we pulled out the onion which was now golden, hucked the burgers from the grill into the batter and then threw them into the oil to congeal.
Green = healthSadly, I have no idea how people at sandwich places get their wraps to stay together, the lettuce turned out to be surprisingly awful at holding things, even after repeated attempts were made to tie, knot, and even toothpick-stab them in place.
THE GRAND RESULT:
TASTE & OPINION
Okay, okay, first off, I KNOW they look like alien terrors from the deep. Their appearance is slightly odd, and could possibly frighten small children. This was apparent on the onion as soon as I took it out of the fryer. The regular deep-fried cheeseburger looks about what you'd expect (roughly the size and shape of a burger), and the burger-wrap came out looking like some sort of tempura-nightmare, mostly due to the lettuce unwrapping itself as it fried.
The reason why the onion came out looking so deformed was mostly because I didn't peel the petals out far enough and I didn't spend enough time separating the layers. When it fried, instead of frying each individual part, they clumped together and hardened in big greasy globs, which gave the onion its terrifying appearance.
In terms of taste however, they were right-on. The onion was slightly undercooked, giving the onions a sort-of grilled taste, especially those in the middle of the fried-clumps. Luckily grilled onion tastes great, and having a flavorful dipping sauce on hand (for once) pushed it to the top. The burgers were cool, it felt strange eating them without a bun, but hey, I'm always a fan of crispy-meaty-goodness. We even took apart the tempura-burger and dunked everything in the dipping sauce and devoured the meat and lettuce.
By the meal's end, there was nothing left but crumbs, and no disgruntled taste-testers! True, it wasn't as exotic as the deep-fried twinkies, or as pretty as anything else you'd find anywhere, but hey, for a first attempt at a more-inclusive restaurant-style meal, not too shabby!!
~ Fryer Lawrence
The reason why the onion came out looking so deformed was mostly because I didn't peel the petals out far enough and I didn't spend enough time separating the layers. When it fried, instead of frying each individual part, they clumped together and hardened in big greasy globs, which gave the onion its terrifying appearance.
In terms of taste however, they were right-on. The onion was slightly undercooked, giving the onions a sort-of grilled taste, especially those in the middle of the fried-clumps. Luckily grilled onion tastes great, and having a flavorful dipping sauce on hand (for once) pushed it to the top. The burgers were cool, it felt strange eating them without a bun, but hey, I'm always a fan of crispy-meaty-goodness. We even took apart the tempura-burger and dunked everything in the dipping sauce and devoured the meat and lettuce.
By the meal's end, there was nothing left but crumbs, and no disgruntled taste-testers! True, it wasn't as exotic as the deep-fried twinkies, or as pretty as anything else you'd find anywhere, but hey, for a first attempt at a more-inclusive restaurant-style meal, not too shabby!!
RECAP OF LESSONS
1. Spices help everything
2. When making an Awesome Blossom, really take care with the cutting and spreading of the onion. Unless you want to make a freaky Halloween onion. Then just go nuts, I guess.
3. Burger-wraps are insanely hard. But then again this is coming from somebody who can't even wrap the simplest of christmas presents without a lot of tape and swearing. Still, if anybody out there can package a sandwich or burger using leaves of lettuce, my hat goes off to you.
4. Making foods that involve different types of batter/preparation leads to a LOT of dishes. It's far easier to make one batter that ALL the different types of foods can be dunked in, but then you get less variety. No matter what, make sure you've got plenty of pots and bowls on hand.
----
There you have it folks! This is where I leave off!! I hope these posts are helpful, either in terms of your own deep-fried experiments or maybe to help pass a few minutes of boredom at work!
Please keep on submitting your comments, as well as ideas for more recipes! I feel like I'm just getting comfortable wading around in the shallows, soon it will be time for me to put on the diving suit, fill my shoes with concrete, and plunge down off the deep-end.
So leave me suggestions! Dig up recipes! And join me once again a few weeks from now, when Your Royal Fry-ness returns for his next bout in the ring!!!!
Sincerely,
2. When making an Awesome Blossom, really take care with the cutting and spreading of the onion. Unless you want to make a freaky Halloween onion. Then just go nuts, I guess.
3. Burger-wraps are insanely hard. But then again this is coming from somebody who can't even wrap the simplest of christmas presents without a lot of tape and swearing. Still, if anybody out there can package a sandwich or burger using leaves of lettuce, my hat goes off to you.
4. Making foods that involve different types of batter/preparation leads to a LOT of dishes. It's far easier to make one batter that ALL the different types of foods can be dunked in, but then you get less variety. No matter what, make sure you've got plenty of pots and bowls on hand.
----
There you have it folks! This is where I leave off!! I hope these posts are helpful, either in terms of your own deep-fried experiments or maybe to help pass a few minutes of boredom at work!
Please keep on submitting your comments, as well as ideas for more recipes! I feel like I'm just getting comfortable wading around in the shallows, soon it will be time for me to put on the diving suit, fill my shoes with concrete, and plunge down off the deep-end.
So leave me suggestions! Dig up recipes! And join me once again a few weeks from now, when Your Royal Fry-ness returns for his next bout in the ring!!!!
Sincerely,
~ Fryer Lawrence
posted by FryerLawrence at 12:39 PM
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