Blooming Onion

Australia: It's not just for being a jerk while playing Risk

Australia has given us some great things over the years. Kangaroos. A fantastic Simpsons episode. And probably other things. Also, thanks to Australian-American restaurants, blooming onions. Sure, some random diner in New Jersey claims that they invented it in the 70s, but that story has some problems, like how suspiciously far from Australia this diner is, and the fact that I don't know if it's true or not. So I'm assuming it was dreamed up in some dingo-encrusted office at Outback Steakhouse's corporate office. Which I'm totally ok with, because they did an awesome job. It's like an onion that's wrapped in fried deliciousness, and blossomed into the best thing ever. And then gave you a free car. And like 6000 superfluous calories. So it's exactly like Oprah.

Ingredients:

1 cup Flour

3 Eggs

1/2 TBSP Smoked Paprika 

1 tsp Salt

1 large human being's pinch of Cayenne Pepper

Onions! (Yes, this recipe makes enough flour and eggs for more than one onion. Yes, that is a good thing, because after you serve your guests the first one, they'll immediately devour it and want another. Assuming you have guests, and aren't just sitting home alone making party food in an ever-growing sea of sadness and fry oil.)

Oil for frying! Any relatively neutral oil with a high smoke point! Like peanut, or canola! 

 The first thing you're gonna need to do is increase your insurance coverage. Because onions are pretty much full of water, and we're pretty much dumping one in a vat of oil. As you may remember, oil and water have a complicated relationship, whereby they try to kill each other, and then kill you for introducing them. Yes, you can help mitigate this by cutting your onions ahead of time and letting them sit in a sealed container overnight, but you're not gonna do that (For the record, that also would have helped your fried bits cling to your onions. Oh well). The point is, you're either gonna burn yourself, your house, or some combination thereof today. Isn't learning fun? Once you've made peace with your impending doom, whisk together your salt, flour, cayenne, and paprika in a bowl. Then take a separate bowl and whisk your eggs in it. You may be wondering where the onion comes in, given that it's a title character of this little adventure. The answer is now, or more accurately at the beginning of the next paragraph.

Chop the head off of your onion, and peel off its outer layer, like you're some kind of sadistic spanish-inquisition style torturer who's trying to convert onions to Catholicism (For those of you now wondering about onion anatomy, its butt is the brown, round, kind of stringy bit on the bottom, and the head is the bit at the top where the excess skin forms a narrowing point. Just like with people). Take a spoon, hollow out your onion's "core," (read: heart) and cut wedges into it, being careful not to cut all the way through to its butt. I know that was a little complicated, so I'll wait here for a few seconds while you re-read it a couple times and make sure you've got it down. Ready? Cool. Now comes the fun part, and by "fun," I mean "kinda of gross at first, and then a healthy mix of terrifying and potentially deadly." Take your onion, and dunk it in your flour mixture. Make sure to get it in all the nooks and crannies. Use a spoon to help you if you need it. There's no shame in relying on spoons. I'm hardly judging you at all. Once your onion is floured, set it aside for a couple minutes. Use this time to heat up your oil in a pot. How much oil? Enough to cover your onion. How big of a pot? Big enough to hold your oil and onion together. And yes, a smaller pot will mean it'll take less oil to cover your onion, saving you as much as one shiny dollar. But you'll have to make a deal with some sort of cruel and malicious deity to eyeball the amount of oil just right. Otherwise, it either won't cover your onion and you'll end up with garbage, or you'll have too much oil, which will spill all over the place, burning your hands, kitchen, and probably soul. All of which you'll then have to spend an hour cleaning up afterwards. So maybe go with a normal sized pot. 

Don't get me wrong, this tasted awesome. Anecdote over.

Using either a deep fryer, a candy/fry thermometer, or the maniacal guesswork of the damned, heat your oil to 350 degrees. Then take your onion (Remember your onion? It's a recipe about your onion), and dunk it in your egg mixture. Then, like two different OCD personalities trapped in one body, dunk the onion back in your flour mixture, again being certain to get floury goodness into every bit. Toss (or, you know, carefully and gently place) your onion into the oil, and fry it at 350 for about 10 minutes. The whole thing should kind of bloom open like it's inviting you into the halls of deliciousness, or, depending on the previously mentioned deity you made a deal with, valhalla. And that's it! Drain it on a rack, or a plate with some paper towels, grab your favorite dipping sauce (I like sriracha-mayo), and dig in. The pleasant ambiance of the warmth and gentle glow from your burning house is an added bonus.

Beer Battered Cauliflower Poppers

A rare shot of cauliflower, trying to
hang out with the cool kids

When I was growing up, there was a pizza store I used to frequent that served fried cauliflower. As I grew older, I was shocked to discover that they weren't actually available...pretty much anywhere else. Also the tooth fairy isn't real. It's a hard life, I know. But the good news is, that with some luck, seasoning, and beer, I've managed to recreate the glory that was my deep fried childhood. I'm still working on the tooth fairy part.

Ingredients:

1 head of Cauliflower (a "head" of cauliflower is the large bulbous mass from which "florettes" or "recognizable bits of cauliflower" are cut. It's called a "head" because it resembles a shrunken head in the offices of cartoon witch doctors. Also, it's the main source if cauliflower cognitive function. Prove me wrong.)

1 1/2 cups of Flour

2 eggs

3/4 cup Whole Milk

1/2 cup Beer

1/4 cup Fresh-grated Parmesan Cheese (if you don't have this lying around, take a wedge of Parmesan, and combine it with a grater)

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Black Pepper

1/2 tsp Paprika

1 normal sized human's pinch of Cayenne Pepper

A finicky kitchen gadget

An unspecified amount of oil (vegetable or peanut)

For this recipe, you're going to have to make a batter. But don't worry! If, as a kid, you've ever mixed together a bunch of things into a weird gloop, you've got most of the technique down. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. 

The first thing to do is to beat your eggs until the yolks and whites combine into a yellow slimy goodness. Combine your egg goop with the milk, beer, and salt in a large bowl. In another, similarly large bowl, combine the flour, paprika, black pepper, cayenne, and cheese. That's right, this recipe requires you to have 2 bowls. It's an upper class, bourgeois recipe that necessitates the ownership of all sorts of bowls and things. But there's a simple step you can take to help with this:

Get over it. It's a bowl. 

Pictured: The source of class warfare

Pour about 1/3 of the flour mixture into your egg goop. Stir until it's combined. Then repeat 2 more times, to incorporate all of your flour (isn't math fun?). Take your cauliflower, and cut it. If you're a badass, turn it upside-down, and cut on an angle into each stalk to extract the florettes. If you're less of a badass, just chop it into ugly chunks. The batter and frying will hide your shame. Almost definitely!

Now comes the fun part, and by "fun" I mean "fire-hazard." You're going to take a WHOLE lot of oil and pour it into a pot. You want the oil to be at least 3 inches high. Next you're going to get a frying thermometer (or a candy thermometer, for the many candy makers who frequent this blog). Attach it to the pot so that it dips in to the oil, but doesn't touch the bottom of the pot. Pray to whatever deity is dear to you that you don't set your house on fire, and then crank the heat until your oil is 370 degrees. Fahrenheit. Because this is America, whatever-deity-you-previously-selected-dammit! 

Image enlarged to show awesomeness

Dunk your cauliflower bits into your goopy mess, to create a goopy cauliflowery mess. Transfer a small amount of this mess to your oil. You want to fry it in small batches to prevent clumping, and to keep the temperature of the oil from dropping too much when you throw your goop in (Note to the overly literal: don't actually THROW things into hot oil. Unless you're into oil burns.) Fry the cauliflower bits, stirring occasionally, until they're golden brown, and you're having trouble resisting the urge to dunk your hand into the hot oil just to get that goodness in you. Then, depending again on how much of a turn-on you find hot oil burns, select a method of cauliflower extraction. The more timid people may want to use a slotted spoon. Put your delicious chunks of fried goodness into a bowl lined with paper towels, and repeat the whole process until you're out of things to fry. Now, if you haven't already, consume your delicious fried cauliflower awesomeness. And if you think you see me tonight, sneaking into your place with a pair of pliers and a tutu, don't worry. You're gonna wake up with a shiny quarter.