onion rings.

we all have our guilty pleasures in this life. some we broadcast to the many, others we keep a little closer to our expanding belt. watching the puppy bowl instead of the super bowl perhaps, or reading us weekly on a long trip instead of the wall street journal or maybe even indulging in a certain edible that has a tendency to delight your tastebuds but perhaps is pretty raunchy, delicious, greasy, nutrionless and fantastic. yep, i have one of those. and folks, it's onion rings.

as a kid i always thought onion rings were a little more sophisticated than french fries. their shape and texture was unique to french fries, but also, an onion is a vegetable. i would voluntarily and willingly eat these "vegetables" with as much vigor as a child can muster after an entire day of playing marco polo in our now deceased above ground pool. most of my friends would turn their noses up when i would substitute onion rings for the sacred french fry. i have even been known to salt them more than generously and douse them in malt vinegar. i've had my share of onion rings and then some but the first memory of them was probably at my grandparents. every saturday was burger night, which came with onion rings an an accompaniment. naturally a mountainous stack of match stick potatoes were also made in comparison to the smallish pile of onion rings, but there were always more interested fry eaters than onion ring eaters. i was queen of the onion rings on these night.

yesterday i was really craving onion rings, but i wasn't craving putting on real clothes and going to bob and edith's diner, ie. the restaurant with the best onion rings in the area. so homemade onion rings became my spontaneous lunch.

start out with a medium sized yellow onion, of which you'll only use about half.
slice into about 1/2 inch slices.

now you'll need a batter of some sort. i took out three bowls, put flour with some salt and pepper in the first, egg with a splash of milk in the next and breadcrumbs in the last.
starting with the flour, dip a ring and coat with flour, shake off excess, dip into egg and coat in breadcrumbs. repeat with remaining rings, i made about 10-12 rings total. line in one layer on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking oil and bake at 325 for 25 minutes.
these need no time to cool in my opion, coat with salt and devour immeaditely.