How to Make Perfect Onion Rings:
- Buy the biggest onions you can find and cut them into very thick rings. The bigger the onion and the thicker the ring, the fewer you have to make. Thick rings are easier to cut than thin ones, and they taste better once they're fried.
- Remove the papery thin membrane covering the inside of each ring -- very important. If you don't, the coating will adhere to the membrane rather than the ring and may fall off during frying.
- Place the onion rings in water -- not to tone down their pungency, as some recipes suggest, but to help the next coating (flour) adhere.
- Dredge the water-soaked onion ring in flour. Because the onion ring's surface is so slick, it's almost impossible to get a batter or coating to stick without this step. The water/flour combination creates a rough paste-like texture that helps the next coating adhere.
- Dip the onion ring in store-bought pancake batter. A leavened batter (one that includes baking powder, baking soda or both) swells and envelopes the ring during frying. But I found making a from-scratch batter complicates the recipe. By using store-bought pancake batter, you just add water and season with salt.
- Keep thinning the batter with water. During dipping, the flour-water mixture from the rings eventually causes the pancake batter to thicken, so keep adding water to the batter so that it stays the consistency of house paint.
- Coat the onion rings in bread crumbs. Onion rings coated only with batter are messy and must be fried immediately. Plus, a thick batter forms a sponge-like coating, resulting in a greasy onion ring. The bread crumb finish gives the onion rings an exceptionally crisp exterior and helps the ring brown quickly so that the onion doesn't overcook and collapse.
- Make the onion rings ahead and fry them ahead, too. The bread crumb coating allows the onion rings to be completed ahead of time (up to 24 hours). And since they hold beautifully in a 200-degree oven for at least a half-hour, the onion rings can be made and fried long before guests arrive.
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