Blooming Onion

Now I'm fixing to show y'all how to make a onion bloom at home

It's a very simple batter. I'm going to use equal parts all-purpose flour to beer

And you want to be careful while you're measuring your beer, because you don't want to measure the foam

And I'm going to tilt it so I don't get a big head on it

And I'm going to actually do a little under two cups, because you'll want your batter more

on the thicker side than the thinner side. So I'm gonna make this, and we're gonna let it sit

for about three or four hours so that the yeast from that beer can activate with that flour

So all we're gonna do is just dump that in there. And I think I'm just gonna put some plain-o Cajun seasoning

All right, we're gonna let this batter sit, and let's talk about our onions

You wanna make sure that you do not disturb the root end of your onion because this root is what going to hold all of our petals together All right now I going to even off this top just like that

and I'm going to pull all this skin off. This is a very, very important step

We're not going to bring our knife up next to that root, because it would actually make our onion collapse too, too wide

So I'm gonna drop that down, and then I'm gonna go all the way in

I wanna make sure the blade of that knife goes through the center of that onion

and then we're gonna do the same thing there. I love using our big Vidalia onions

but our Texas sweet onion is real good. But you wanna make sure that he's nice and round

and we're just gonna take our onion and go around until the whole onion is cut

All right, now look. I'm gonna turn this onion upside down, and I just gonna kind of wiggle him And this is my batter that I had sitting up for about three hours I gonna give it a little stir and see if I like the consistency of it

I've got a little flour right here and I think I'm gonna just dust it

If your batter is too thin, it'll come off and your batter will be all in your grease

and not on your onion. We've got our Dutch oven filled with peanut oil

So I'm gonna take our onion, and I'm gonna lay it down in our batter

and I'm just gonna spoon that batter all in there because I want it on every petal

And we wanna make sure that our temperature is where it should be

because if we put it in too cold to grease, our onion's just gonna go soggy on us

So I'm gonna check this with a thermometer, and we're at 350

So here we go. I gonna pick him up by his side but you just wanna be careful because when I put this onion in I run the risk of this boiling over So you want to be real careful and not fill it too full

Now I've got to let him stay down in there, because I want that batter to kind of adhere

before I disturb him. But you can see how he's totally submerged in grease, and that's what you need to make

a successful blooming onion. All right, let's see, I'm going to ease him up

And I'm gonna let him drain over the pot for a minute to get that grease out of him

And I'm gonna let it drain there just for a second. And I'm gonna put him on our platter

Now I have chosen ranch dressing as a dipping sauce. Ooh, this onion looks totally perfect

And have y'all ever noticed how Gertie shows up just as I'm ready to taste

I don't know if y'all like onions, though, girl. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

The onion was a huge success