I’ve made several posts throughout the week celebrating this area’s most beloved Festival. This is the last weekend of the 2020 Florida Strawberry Festival here in Plant City… So I decided to share two strawberry centric recipes with you. The first one is one of our family favorites, onion rings made from strawberry onions!

Today I stopped off at Three Son Farms, on my way home from taking my husband for an oil change in Plant City. I had planned all week on stopping off at one of my local strawberry fields to get a few fresh strawberry onions to make my homemade onion rings. Lucky for me, this road side farmstand is only 3 miles from my house!

Not too many people know about the famed strawberry onion that grows at the same time as Plant City’s delectable Strawberries. They’re grown as a natural pesticide with the strawberry plants, on the outer perimeter of the strawberry field. They are sweet (sweetness relative o an onion) and delicate with a much softer bite than the vidalia onion. These unique onions are huge, like a softball! Perfect for onion rings!

This is an extremely simple recipe, one that can easily be done with any fresh vegetable of your choice!

Ingredients:

• 1 large, cleaned strawberry onion or Vidalia onion
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup tap water
• 1 tbsp each of garlic powder, salt, pepper & onion powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 bottle vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

Start by thinly slicing your clean onion. Separate the layers.

Heat your neutral cooking oil, in a roomy pot, on medium heat. While the oil comes to temperature, start preparing your onion rings.

To get started, lightly beat the eggs and water together, making an egg wash. Season the AP flour with the spices listed above. Feel free to change up my traditional batter spices for your family favorites! I use pie tins whenever I batter anyting. They are uniform and roomy enough to do a few batches at one time.

I always batter much like you would for southern fried chicken… Always start by dredging the onions in the seasoned flour mixture, then into the egg wash, and lastly back into the seasoned flour. Place all of the battered onion rings in a separate pie tin.

Drop a pinch of flour into the oil to see if it bubbles round it to make sure the oil is hot enough. Begin frying in small batches so you don’t change the temperature of the oil too quickly.

Simply put, when they are golden brown, they are done and can be taken out of the oil. Place the freshly fried onion rings on paper towel lined platter, give them a nice dusting salt and wait a few minutes before eating so you don’t burn your tongue!

Bon appetit

Rachel