Weekly Dish

One of my favorite things to do at the end of the week is to open up the produce drawer in my refrigerator and cook what’s left. This vegetable plate represents such a venture: rosemary roasted potatoes, roasted carrots, fresh corn with basil, and chili-spiced Vidalia onion rings.

For the carrots and potatoes, I simply toss them with olive oil, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper, (and chopped fresh rosemary on the potatoes) and roast in a 425-degree oven until they’re crispy on the outside.

These onion rings are simple too. Just don’t fry too many, they’re quite addictive, and they don’t keep well.

Chili-Spiced Onion Rings
2 medium Vidalia onions, sliced thickly
2 cups buttermilk, or enough to cover the rings
2 cups flour
2 T. corn starch
2 t. chili powder
1 t. paprika
1 t. cumin
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
2-3 cups canola or vegetable oil
Seasoning salt, to taste
Soak thickly sliced rings in buttermilk. Heat oil in a large pot over high heat, deep enough to completely immerse one layer of the rings. In a shallow dish, mix the flour, corn starch, chili powder, paprika, cumin, and cayenne. Dip each ring in the flour mixture to coat. Fry the rings in hot canola or vegetable oil (enough to immerse the rings completely) until brown and crispy. Be careful not to overcrowd the pan. Drain on paper towels, and sprinke with seasoning salt.
Besides the spices, flour, and olive oil, everything on our plate came straight from the Louisiana earth, and I can’t wait to fix seasonal variations of this meal over and over again. Or at least until the fruitful ground takes its next rest.

Posted: Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 10:39 am Filed under: On the Side, Snacks, Vegetables. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.