Onion Rings and Eggs

If you know the sweet flavor of cooked onions, you can already imagine how delicious this simple breakfast dish is.

If you think you do not like onions, that is because you have only been exposed to raw white onions on a hotdog at a bad hotdog stand.

This version of the recipe is mine, but the idea occurred to me from a reel I encountered when scrolling on Facebook. I didn’t stop to view it. I was already hungry and that little nudge was all I needed to decide what breakfast should be today.

Ingredients:
Olive oil
Eggs
Sausage or other meat
Grated cheese of choice
Onion
Peppers of choice
Garlic
Salt
Ground black pepper
(Other ingredient options, such as mushrooms or tomatoes, are only limited by your imagination and pantry.)

Prep:
Set your shredded cheese out and let it come to room temperature while you work on the other ingredients. This will allow it to melt faster when you begin cooking.

Rinse and cut off the top and remove the seeds from the peppers. I had one Marconi and one Sweet Banana Pepper from the garden. For more heat, you might choose Jalapeño or Serrano. You know what you like or what you have handy. I decided on these peppers because they were the peppers I had in my garden, but they worked well together.

Mince the peppers. In addition to providing flavor and potentially heat, the peppers provide texture, so don’t cut them too small.

Mince a small bit of the onion, roughly an amount equivalent to one pepper, also purely for the sake of texture.  

Mince one to two cloves of garlic.

Every type of onion brings its unique flavor to this dish. Today I used a red onion because I had one on hand. Then again, I usually do have one on hand because I like cooking with them. Goldie Locks would agree. They have just enough punch to taste oniony, but mildly so, when raw. Cooked or raw, they have a gentle sweet flavor, which holds up well when cooked, so they tend to be my go-to onion. But to each his (or her) own, white, yellow, or any other variety would work.

More than thirty years of teaching have taught me that some things that should not have to be said frequently have to be said — Peel the onion.

Next, cut the onion horizontally into a quarter or half inch rounds. After cutting the onion into rounds, take each slice and gently push out the individual layers. Each slice will naturally have rings that can be separated by lightly pressing them apart with your fingers. The rings will vary in size. Decide which size rings you want to use, or use a variety of sizes if you wish.

By the way, unless you are cooking for an army, you will have more than half of the onion left. Fortunately for me, Monday is Labor Day, so the remainder will be used with burgers and hotdogs. Onion slices will keep well for a few days stored in the refrigerator.

If you have read any of my cooking narratives, you know that part of the process is using what you have on hand instead of running to the store for ingredients. Earlier in the week I made cheese greets with Italian sausage. I had one sausage left, so I crumbled it. But you can use cold cuts or bacon or even omit meat. If you are working with uncooked meat, especially pork, cook it before you mix it with the eggs. The cook time for the eggs will not be long enough for uncooked meat to cook adequately.

I was making enough for the family, my band of Three Musketeers (and sometimes Three Stooges), so I used five eggs. Crack them into a small mixing bowl and whisk. Whisking not only mixes the whites and yolks, it aerates, creating a fluffy texture. Next, combine the other ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste. If you are not sure how much salt or pepper, you could wait until you begin to cook the eggs for salt and pepper if you prefer or even wait until they are cooked.

Salting tip: You should use just enough salt to bring out the flavors. You never want to taste the salt. As for pepper, I like lots of ground black pepper. I have my mother’s palette. She virtually covers her eggs with black pepper.

Add the shredded cheese and continue to mix. (I did not have any shredded cheese in the fridge, but I did have sliced Colby Jack. I tore two slices into small pieces, which worked fine.)

Cook:
Once the egg mixture is prepared, add olive oil to a skillet and heat. I usually turn the heat up high and then back down after the oil heats up. There is no particular culinary reason that I know of for this. It has more to do with my impatience. Once the oil is hot, turn the heat to medium low.

Take the skillet off the heat to add the onions. This will reduce the likelihood of the oil popping on you. (I experimented with a couple of techniques. This one worked the best.) Your onion rounds will have a bit of a funnel shape because of the natural shape of the onion. Place them in the oil with the larger aperture facing up. Return to heat. If you notice, the onions will begin to gently change color and texture from the bottom up as they cook. After about twenty to thirty seconds, flip. Cook for twenty or thirty more seconds, depending on the size of the slice, and then flip again.  You don’t want to brown them. Just barely begin the caramelization process.

With the funnel end up, add the egg mixture inside the rings. For this, I used a gravy ladle. I coated it with oil to keep the eggs from sticking. I have no idea if coating with oil really made any sense or helped, but using the ladle was more manageable than pouring from the mixing bowl. Be careful not to overfill the rings. If you do, eggs will spill out into the skillet as you cook. (Yes, I learned this from experience today.) Some might seep underneath the rings also. That’s ok. Just gently pull them away from the rings before you try to flip them.

Skillet tip: Use a griddle or at least use a shallow skillet to make maneuvering the rings easier while they cook. Also, do not place too many rings in the skillet at the same time. It makes it harder to individually flip them without bumping the others and spilling the egg mixture.

Let the eggs cook. When there is just a slight bit of uncooked egg left on top, flip the rings. I settled on a small, thin spatula. From my several attempts, it worked better than a larger or thinker spatula. Let them cook just long enough for the remaining uncooked egg to get done or cook longer if you want the egg to brown a little.

Plating:
Remove from oil and place on a plate. It will not take them long to cool enough to eat.

I plated the onion ring eggs with some of the leftover grits from the cheese grits and Italian sausage from earlier in the week. (Plated, I sound so fancy.) The grits were not watery instant grits. They were rich and thick with cheese, butter, and chicken stock and paired nicely with the onion rings and eggs. (Paired nicely, yep, my diction is definitely getting fancier.)

The onion rings and eggs were delicious, and I ate more than my share!

Postscript: Did you know that due to their high fructan content, a type of carbohydrate that can cause gas and bloating, eating too many onions can cause a tummy ache? Yeah, I learned that from experience today too. But it was worth it.