An onion ring, also called a French fried onion ring, is a form of
appetizer
An hors d'oeuvre ( ; french: hors-d'œuvre ), appetiser or starter is a small dish served before a meal in European cuisine. Some hors d'oeuvres are served cold, others hot. Hors d'oeuvres may be served at the dinner table as a part of the ...
or
side dish
A side dish, sometimes referred to as a side order, side item, or simply a side, is a food item that accompanies the entrée or main course at a meal.British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and
American cuisine
American cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes prepared in the United States. It has been significantly influenced by Europeans, indigenous Native Americans, Africans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and many other cultures an ...
. They generally consist of a cross-sectional "ring" of
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...
dipped in
batter or
bread crumbs
Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled bread of various dryness, sometimes with seasonings added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thickeni ...
and then
deep fried
Deep frying (also referred to as deep fat frying) is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, traditionally lard but today most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow oil used in conventional frying done in a frying pan. Nor ...
; a variant is made with onion paste. While typically served as a side dish, onion rings are often eaten by themselves.
History
A British recipe from 1802 calls for cutting onions into slices, dipping them into a batter, adding Parmesan cheese, and deep frying them in lard. It suggests serving them with a sauce of melted butter and mustard.
Recipes for and references to deep-fried battered onion slices or rings are found across the 20th century: one in
Middletown, New York in 1910; another in a 1933 advertisement for
Crisco
Crisco is an American brand of shortening that is produced by B%26G Foods. Introduced in June 1911 by Procter & Gamble, it was the first shortening to be made entirely of vegetable oil, originally cottonseed oil. Additional products marketed u ...
.
Various restaurants claimed to have invented onion rings, including the
Kirby's Pig Stand
Kirby's Pig Stand was the first drive-in restaurant to open in the United States. It was opened by Jessie G. Kirby and Reuben Jackson in 1921, in Dallas, Texas. Then in the 1980s, it changed ownership and name to Woodfire Kirby's.
History
Kirby's ...
restaurant chain, founded in
Oak Cliff, Texas
Oak Cliff is a neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, that was formerly a separate town in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff in 1901. It has since retained a distinct neighborhood identity as one of Dallas' older established neighborhoods.
Oak C ...
in the early 1920s.
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
)
Food chemistry
The cooking process decomposes
propanethial oxide in the onion into the sweet-smelling and tasting
bispropenyl disulfide, responsible for the slightly sweet taste of onion rings.
See also
*
Blooming onion – a whole onion that is cut into a flower shape that fans out
*
Fried onion
Fried onions are slices of onions that are either pan fried (sautéed) or deep fried — and consumed as a popular snack food, garnish, or vegetable accompaniment to various recipes.
Sautéed onions
Common fried onions are cooked by basic pan fr ...
s
*
Funyuns
Funyuns is the brand name of an onion-flavored corn snack introduced in the United States in 1969, and invented by Frito-Lay employee George Wade Bigner. Funyuns consist primarily of cornmeal, ring-shaped using an extrusion process, representing th ...
– an onion flavored, corn based snack food, shaped like onion rings
*
List of deep fried foods
This is a list of deep fried foods and dishes. Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, such as cooking oil. This is normally performed with a deep fryer or chip pan, and industrially, a pressure fryer or vacuum f ...
*
List of hors d'oeuvre
This is a list of notable hors d'oeuvre, also referred to as appetisers or starters, which may be served either hot or cold. They are food items served before the main courses of a meal, and are also sometimes served at the dinner table as a part ...
*
List of onion dishes
This list consists of notable dishes and foods in which onion is used as a primary ingredient. Onions are widely used in cooking. They are very versatile and can be baked, boiled, braised, grilled, fried, roasted, sautéed or eaten raw.
Onion ...
References
External links
*
{{Deep frying foods
Fast food
Onion-based foods
Appetizers
Deep fried foods
British cuisine
Cuisine of the Southern United States
American vegetable dishes