Much as I love french fries—if I did a pie chart of ‘why am I overweight’, they’d have a big slice—I also really like one kind of onion rings. While I generally hate the other kind.
The kind I like is with minced onion; the kind I hate is with a whole slice of an onion. I’m not sure exactly why these two alternatives stir such strong reactions. With the slice-rings, the onion is often not done enough, so you get that sharp raw flavor coming through. If it’s not a sweet onion to begin with, that’s very off-putting in and of itself. Even with a sweet onion, there’s just something about the mouthfeel that bugs me. The two kinds also tend to be battered differently—slice-rings are often made with a heavier beer batter, mince-rings with a crunchier breaded or panko coating.
I thought about making my own to go with a mid-weekend meal, but for the whole end of the week last week I was feeling pretty wiped out and raw, so minimal effort was on the menu. However, I also suddenly realized that I had no idea how to make the minced kind. Without cheating by looking at the Internet, I considered the problem. There were only two possibilities that I could think of: 1) mince some onions in bulk and then use some kind of pastry bag or extruder to lay them down in a circle shape on a greased surface or parchment paper and then hard freeze them, dipping them in a coating and frying them after they froze or 2) mixing the onions into a batter, squeezing that out in a circle shape and then breading that. Looking it up, it seems it’s #2. In either case, it feels like something that you’d almost have to do industrially to get a good outcome. So I don’t think I’ll ever bother.
Sunday I felt more like cooking up a substantial meal, so I planned on lamb kabobs. I went back and forth a bit on exactly how to spice them and in the end went with onions, herbs, za’atar and hawajj. I don’t have broad metal skewers that can really hold ground meat well, so I did find myself thinking “why not just make patties”? Which then led to the next thought: what’s the difference between a ground-meat kebab and a hamburger? The answer, in the end, is really just the spicing and maybe something added for binding (egg or yogurt, etc.) unless we’re talking something more like souvlaki (whole chunks of meat and vegetables) at which point the skewer matters a lot more. The main reason with ground kebabs to go with a long cigar shape is about cooking time—generally you’re not going to serve that with a pink interior, you want it to cook through, so if it’s on a hot fire, you don’t want the cooler center that a substantial patty creates.
Grilling gets complicated this time of year just because it gets dark so early, not as much because it’s cold, at least not until late December. Anyway, the kebabs came out pretty well, with a little cucumber salad and some grilled flatbread on the side. I also decided to make the house dal from Dishoom, which was great except that mine just never seems to get that deep red-brown that the restaurant version does. Not sure why: I follow the recipe pretty religiously.
As long as there was fire outside and it was dark, I thought maybe we should use our very under-used fire pit and make s’mores. I was kind of stunned while shopping in a big chain supermarket that when I asked where the marshmallows were, the first stocking clerk asked “what are those?” and then shrugged when I explained. “No idea,” he said. The other took me to a jar of fluff. I am sure they had them but after 30 minutes of looking I gave up. We found them easily enough the next day at the small local market. I did find myself wondering if somehow I’d missed something and marshmallows had become completely obsolete.
I lingered outside after everybody else went in. When I think about where I’d like to live after retirement, I go back and forth about how remote it ought to be. Remote seems like a bad idea in terms of access to health care, in terms of making new friends and acquaintances, in terms not having to drive everywhere when my eyesight and reflexes are declining. But then again, thinking about being outside next to a fire pit with a dark sky full of stars and without the noise of an interstate constantly filling up the night? Even if that retirement turns out to be a brief interlude, that thought grabs me pretty hard.
Onion rings are one of the things I almost always order when it's on a menu, especially if it's an option to fries. I tend to like all types of onion rings, but it hadn't really occurred to me that some are made from minced onion. But I dislike it when I take a bite which doesn't cut completely through the onion, which then slides out to leave a tube of fried breading. (One of the other things I almost always order when it's on a menu, at least in the cold months, is French Onion Soup.)
The marshmallows weren't in the baking aisle near the jello? I find it so disorienting when a supermarket isn't laid out right.
I thought I was the only one who disliked breaded onion rounds. My option is to not eat onion rings at all. As for retirement, you also need to think about life without stairs. Pro tip.