Hi everybody.
i'm sure all of you have fond memories of a favourite food dish that you used to eat when you were young. In my case i remember going on a long car trip with my parents and we went into this restaurant and i remember i had an order of onion rings. They were the best ones i ever had but i can't remember the name of the restaurant or even what city it was in. It was many years ago.
The last few months i've been trying to make my own onion rings and hoping i could duplicate the taste. i've tried several recipes and all of them were no good. However, a few days ago i found a recipe on the internet for Outback Steakhouse Blooming Onion and i bought all the ingredients...stuff i really never have around my kitchen like cornstarch, garlic, paprika, cayenne pepper...i also bought a case of beer because one of the ingredients was beer. I spent about $30.00 on all of the ingredients that were required, not counting the case of beer, which cost $45.00 Canadian.Last night i finally decided to try the recipe and it took me about half an hour to mix up all the ingredients, including a bottle of Heineken beer, and i put two onion rings in the hot oil...and then i tried to eat them and they were the worst onion rings i ever had!...It was terrible!i can't understand what went wrong because i followed the recipe exactly as it was written. i got so upset that i dumped all the batter and other ingredients in the garbage. Those two onion rings i ate cost me about $15.00 each! And what a mess to clean up all the dishes and the pot...i was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem trying to duplicate a favourite food memory from childhood.
love from,
tara
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4 comments:
Almost always. I don't recall ever being able to duplicate the taste of something that I liked that I had out when I made it at home. However, this works both ways...and there are also many favorites that I have had at home that I have never had duplicated when eating out..^_^. There are also things which I have had out that I loved at one age, and have either changed as I got older, or the way I taste has changed. KFC original I used to love..but now I don't find it so interesting. Coke Classic is another example..but they don't even admit that it varies from plant to plant...which to me is so obvious I can't believe any of them have taste buds at all, never mind that it doesn't taste the same as when it was made with cane sugar. When I worked at a Chicken Delite around 40 years ago they had a great dry rub and great ribs. I have never found them to be the same at any store with that name since..not that there are many about. Now it seems that the taste of all ribs must be covered over in somebody or others "secret" sauce, and you might as well otherwise be eating sauce covered cardboard. (I understand in some cases this is the fault of the ribs themselves...which now come from the new, lean breeds of pig that just weren't around back when pork had fat..^_^ They used to be juicy without a pint of ketchup and molasses poured all over them).
As far as your onion ring experiment went...I find it hard to believe that in Toronto in February you were able to lay your hands on real Vidalia onions (which the recipes that I have seen call for), and used plain ole "sweet" yellow onions..which contain if you are lucky about half the sugar content of a Vidalia in season..which if I remember correctly, doesn't begin for a month or 2 yet..^_^. Not saying that this is what the problem was...just saying it's just one of the variables. I am sure that Outback had much more detailed instructions about them, such as how long to wait after/between coatings...or even how long to leave the batter mixture sit. The one I have seems to maybe have 2 different coatings...a dry one first...then a wet batter...but the instructions are...obtuse at best, and much is "assumed" that any cook would just "know".
Hi Cliff,
Thanks for your comments...yes i just used a sweet onion because the store didn't have the Vidalia variety of onion. Also, my instructions never mentioned anything about letting the batter mixture sit. The recipe had too coatings...dry then wet. But i did everything right away with no time in between. Also, i used Canola Oil when maybe a different type of oil was required. The recipe didn't tell me how to do things good so its all their fault!
Anyway, i'll just eat onion rings at restaurants from now on and if i'm lucky i'll find a good place. Most places use the frozen processed onion rings which don't taste good.
love from,
tara
You know what? If you order onion rings and get the frozen processed ones..scratch that restaurant off your list of places..unless they do something else really really well. They can't be trusted not to be using all sorts of frozen foods then..and unless it's a place where you order through a clowns head, should be skipped. (You know what you are getting when you order through a clowns head..so you had fair warning..^_^).
same goes for mashed potatoes
too many restaurants use boxed "real mashed potatoes" -- the sign of a bad or lazy cook
one other thought on fried foods - in the old days folks used more animal fat....
I save bacon fat and use it when making lots of things -- adds a subtle very nice flavor --
yes yes I know about heart disease --- so you need to remember that a little goes a long way - portion size is essential for heart health.
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