When: June 22
The onion ring's quality is determined almost entirely by the batter. A great onion ring has a shatteringly crispy exterior, a perfectly cooked onion that doesn't pull out in one piece when bitten, and enough seasoning to stand alone without dipping sauce. The technique is straightforward once you understand the variables.
The onion ring is one of American fried food's most satisfying achievements — and it's almost entirely about the batter.
The onion ring is genuinely American — one of the few foods in American cuisine that doesn't trace its origins to a European predecessor. The earliest recipe in print appears in the 1933 Crisco recipe book, under the name "Fried Onions with Tentacles." The Pig Stand chain, founded in Dallas in 1921 and considered the first drive-in restaurant in America, is credited by some food historians with popularizing the onion ring as a standard menu item before that recipe appeared in print. Unlike the hamburger, the hot dog, or the pizza, the onion ring has no obvious old-world equivalent it evolved from. The onion is the underappreciated foundation of the American flavor vocabulary — it underpins every braise, every sauce, every roast, almost every savory dish that exists. Frying it in batter inverts its usual role: instead of disappearing into the background as a building block, the onion becomes the main event, encased in a crunchy shell that concentrates its sweetness through heat. The...