The Picky Gourmet: Gluten Free Onion (St)rings

Watching as Gluten Free Girl has adapted Pioneer Woman's recipes over the past week made me want to share my own P-dub adaptation with other gluten averse folk out there. Reading her onion ring recipe made my mouth water and I knew I had to have these, minus the stomach pain. I have mentioned before that I am not much into purchasing dozens of different flours and carefully weighing out incremental bits of this and that in order to make a near perfect replica of some wheat flour filled recipe. I don't have the counter space or head space for that. That said, I recently invested (99 cents!) in some white rice flour.

I have seen chefs use it before for frying, even when they're cooking for those who can tolerate gluten. Some say it makes the best batter for fish and chips, others swear by it for making roux and I knew it would be awesome for onion rings. It's super fine which results in a very crispy texture. In this recipe I also upped the ante with a bit of cornmeal for extra crunch. I wouldn't use it if I were serving these as a side but as an appetizer (or meal, if you're me) it definitely gives a little something extra.

Ingredients
- 1 whole Large Onion (yellow or sweet)
- 2 cups Buttermilk
- 1 cup Rice Flour
- 1/2 cup Corn Meal (I used the same coarse meal I use to make polenta)
- 1/2 Tbsp Seasoned Salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp Cayenne Pepper
- 1 quart (to 2 Quarts) Canola Oil (enough to fill your fryer halfway)
- Salt to taste (Add this at the end. I found my first batch to be waaaaaay too salty so I would recommend just using the seasoning salt)

Instructions:

Slice onion very thin.

Place rings and strings in a baking dish and cover with buttermilk and soak for at least an hour.

Whisk together dry ingredients and set aside.

Heat oil to 375 degrees or use your fryer's instructions.

Using tongs, take a batch of onions, dredge them in the flour mixture, shake off excess, and place them into the fryer basket then lower them into the hot oil.