Fried Oysters and Onion Rings

In my opinion, there are some foods that you can find almost anywhere, yet are rarely done well. Those foods for me are Onion Rings, Nachos and Chili Cheese Fries. Sure, you can probably walk down the block and find a place that serves one of those items. More often than not, it will be a half-assed rendition of that dish. You would think that something as simple as onion rings wouldn't be that big of a deal. But, in some areas, finding that properly made dish can become more difficult than finding a father on the Maury Show.

So, what do you do when you can't find a properly prepared comfort food you crave? Well, you don't crawl into a ball and cry about it! You make it yourself! Then, you take a piece down the street to your local greasy spoon and yell "THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE, DICKHEAD! GET IT RIGHT!"

A few weeks ago, I got a craving for onion rings that couldn't be appeased with anything else. I've tried onion rings from various restaurants in my area and haven't been thrilled with any of them. As much as I don't like deep frying at home, I knew I was going to have to handle this craving on my own.

To my knowledge, there are two ways of battering onion rings: wet and dry. While the big, fluffy beer battered rings are cool, I prefer the rings made with a dry coating. Don't ask me why, it just is.

In most of the recipes I came across, the directions were all pretty similar. Cut the onions thick, drop in milk, then drop in a flour and cornmeal mixture. The temperature for the oil varied between 360 and 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Easy enough, right?

The recipe I used was about 65/35 flour to cornmeal. I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and an ass-load of smoked paprika. Seriously, as I was stirring the dry ingredients together, the smell from the smoked paprika was incredibly strong! I was scared that I added too much!

As I was getting all the ingredients together, I started to wonder what else was in the house that I could fry. I had a couple potatoes, but I didn't want to mess around fries that day.  I remembered that I had some frozen oysters tucked away in the depths of my freezer. So, I started to thaw out the oysters and took a much needed beer break.

When the oysters were close to being thawed, I got my onions all sliced up.

Next, it was time to set up the dredging station.

I did the dry-wet-dry dip with the onion rings, but I didn't do that with the oysters. For the oysters, I just added a tablespoon or two to the plain flour and left it at that. I didn't want all the seasoning taking anything away from the oysters.

When the oil reached the right temp, I dropped in the onion rings a few at a time. I flipped them over when needed, and they only took about 3 or 4 minutes to cook.

Here are the finished rings.

The oysters cooked pretty fast. I'd say about 2 minutes. No more than 3 minutes.

As I was frying the oysters, I realized that I had no clue on how I was going to present this. I didn't want to just dump a bunch of fried shit on a plate with a dipping sauce. The fried oysters immediately made me think of Po' Boys, so I would just do a simple sandwich. And when I say "simple" I mean extremely fucking simple!

I took a couple of slices of white bread and cut the crusts off. I spread a little butter on one side and set it to toast in a pan on low heat.

While the bread was getting toasty, I mixed a couple tablespoons of mayo with sriracha. When the bread was done, it was time to plate up.

Here's another shot of the final product:

I can easily say that these were some of the most flavorful onion rings I've ever had. I was worried that the smoked paprika would be too much, but it gave the onions a great taste. The coating was nice and crispy, while the onion was tender and didn't just pull out of the coating.

The down side of the rings was that they had an extremely short shelf life. Most fried foods don't hold up that well over time, but these seemed go quicker than normal. The easy solution to that is just eat the fucking things before it happens.

The oyster sandwich, though, was...almost sinful. I took a bite, and as soon as the oysters hit my tongue, it seemed like time stopped for a moment. The buttery bread, the bit of heat from the mayo and the crispy oysters created a symphony of decadence that was so unexpected. I was just planning on getting my onion ring fix, but this sandwich clearly stole the show. I'm glad I was sitting down when I had it.

The only thing it was missing was a few drops of lemon juice. Other than that, it was just ridiculous. This was something that I will most certainly do again.

There you have it. Another little food adventure that took an unexpected turn for the better. Hope you enjoyed it enough to come back soon for another wild ride.

Take Care!