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Fried Onions
Peel and slice into even rounds four medium sized onions. Place them first in milk and then in flour, and fry in very hot fat for eight minutes. Remove carefully, and lay them on a cloth to dry. Place a folded napkin on a dish, lay them on, and serve with a little fried parsley.
An onion ring in its plainest form: milk, flour, hot fat. The only real problem is the timing.
- Eight minutes is far too longThin onion rounds in a bare flour coating are done in two to three minutes at 350-375F, when the coating turns pale gold. Eight minutes at the "very hot fat" the recipe calls for gives you something bitter and dark. Judge by colour, not the clock.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "very hot fat"; a deep kettle of lard or beef fat over a range is the likely period arrangement. Use 350-375F in a heavy pot filled no more than a third; drop a test ring first and adjust. Below 325F the flour turns pasty and the rings absorb fat.
- Separate the ringsAfter slicing, push the rounds apart into individual rings before they go into the milk. Clumps of two or three trap wet flour between the layers and steam rather than crisp.
- The coatingMilk then flour, nothing else — no egg, no batter, no seasoning in the flour. It gives a thin, dry, shattery crust rather than the thick jacket of a modern beer-battered ring. Let the floured rings sit a minute before frying so the coating sets, and shake off the surplus or it will burn loose in the fat.
- SaltOscar does not mention it. Salt the rings the moment they come out of the fat, while the surface is still hot enough to hold it.
- Fried parsleySprigs must be thoroughly dry or the water in them will make the fat erupt. Ten to fifteen seconds in the same fat is enough; the parsley should stay bright green and go brittle. Fry it after the onions.
- The napkinA folded napkin on the serving dish acted as a grease blotter in service of this period, and it works, but it will stain. Drain on paper towels or a rack first, then transfer to the napkin for the table if you want the effect.
- YieldFour medium onions serve four as a garnish or side, less if they are eaten standing over the pot. Fry in batches so the fat does not drop out of range.
Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896, presents fried onions as a restaurant garnish rather than a snack — served on a napkin, crowned with fried parsley, in the manner of the French *oignons frits*. Dipping in milk and dredging in flour is an older approach than the thick batter associated with the batter-dipped onion rings that became common in twentieth-century America. Fried parsley, rare now, appears often in nineteenth-century service as a green flourish for anything that came out of the fat kettle; it cost nothing and used the same pot. Oscar was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel rather than its chef, which may be part of why these entries read as instructions for presentation as much as for cooking.