The onion ring may be second choice, but it’s still a delicious one!
When going out for a burger in Denver do you always order fries on the side? French fries and hamburgers go together like peanut butter and jelly. It’s hard to imagine one without the other. But what about onion rings? They may not be as popular as fries, but still the onion ring is a faithful companion to the burger and we’ve been enjoying them for a long time.
A restaurant chain called the Pig Stand from Texas claims to have invented the onion ring in the 1920’s. However, the first known recipe for a batter-dipped fried onion ring was in an 1802 cookbook by John Mollard called The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined. It was called “Fried Onions with Parmesan Cheese” and called for dipping sliced onions into a batter made of flour, cream and Parmesan cheese and then deep frying them in lard. It also suggested dipping them into a sauce of melted butter mixed with mustard. In 1933 Crisco placed an advertisement in The New York Times Magazine that included a recipe for onions dipped in milk, dredged in seasoned flour and deep fried.
What do you think makes a great onion ring? Do you like thick slices with a thick batter? Or do you prefer ultra-thin slices that are simply coated in seasoned flour and fried until crisp? Either of these variations make a great burger topping, especially with a milkshake on the side. National Onion Ring Day may be June 22, but at Gunther Toody’s we like to enjoy onion rings any day of the week!
The Bleu Suede Shoes Burger at Gunther Toody’s features batter fried onion strings.