French Fry Diary 489: The Onion Chips

There were some similar potato chips in the bag o' rare chips The Bride got me for Christmas from Anchor Food Finds. In this case, there were three bags of much the same theme - onions.

Deep River Sweet Maui Onion - this would be my second bag of Deep River chips from the bag o' rare chips. These were really not as good as the first bag. No great aroma, no great flavor. All in all, a disappointment.

Grippo's Sweet Bermuda Onion - this was by far the biggest bag of chips in the whole bag o' chips at three and a half ounces. It also had the tightest expiration date, so I probably should have opened it first. No worries, they were still good. However as a regular "Hoarders" viewer, I do feel the need to point out that expiration dates are NOT just a guideline.

Grippo's is a company that's been around for almost a century. They started off making cones for ice cream, moved on to pretzels, then chips, and now make a lot of stuff, including dips, seasonings, and even BBQ sauce. They have an intriguing variety of chip flavors including Hot Dill Pickle and Cheddar Cheese with Jalapeño.

The chips themselves are heavily seasoned, and not flatteringly so. The chips look like you might have to shake it off, there's so much. This is not a happy onion flavor but it's there, and lingers for a while. And saddest of all, it kinda masks the potato flavor of the chip as well. Another disappointment as I really was looking forward to trying these.

Mister Bee Sour Cream & Onion - Mister Bee is a regional family run company recently purchased by the West Virginia Potato Chip Company. Careful inspection of this blog will reveal a complete lack of reviews or even mentions of the popular potato chip flavor sour cream and onion. Easy answer: I don't like them.

That's why I wanted to hand this bag off to The Bride, not in an ungrateful way, but because she likes that flavor. However, The Bride not being around at the moment of writing this entry, I bit the bullet, er, um, chip.

There was a good(?) aroma of sour cream and onion when I opened the bag. The chips however had the same grainy and overseasoned texture as the other Mister Bee's chips I have encountered. Ick. Not a good flavor, and not a good chip either, in my opinion.

Sadly, this was not a good batch of chips this time.

French Fry Diary 438: Sandwich King Onion Rings

We've talked about Jeff Mauro the Sandwich King before. The Bride and I are fans. On his show, called surprisingly enough, "Sandwich King," sometimes he makes a side or two that may be of interest to folks here at French Fry Diary. In the season two episode "Classics with a Twist," he makes baked onion rings.

Here's Jeff's recipe for Oven Baked Onion Rings:

Prep Time: 10 min, Cook Time: 20 min, Level: Easy, Serves: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons smoked paprika, 4 teaspoons kosher salt, 2 cups buttermilk, 4 eggs, 3 cups panko breadcrumbs, 4 tablespoons olive oil, 2 large yellow sweet onions, such as Maui, sliced 1/4-to-1/2-inch thick

Directions: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Place parchment paper onto 2 baking sheets and set aside. In a small bowl, combine the flour, paprika and 2 teaspoons salt. In another bowl or shallow dish, whisk together the buttermilk and eggs. Add half of the flour mixture to the buttermilk and beat until smooth and thickened.

In a separate bowl, combine the panko, olive oil and remaining 2 teaspoons salt. Lightly dredge the onion rings in the flour mixture and then drop into the buttermilk. Drain the excess batter and then dredge in the panko mixture.

Arrange on the prepared baking sheets in a single layer. You can place smaller rings inside bigger rings if necessary, just make sure there is space between them. Then place in the oven. Cook until golden brown, 14 to 20 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, flip over each onion ring to ensure even crisping and browning.

Check out the complete recipe here.

French Fry Diary 365: Hawaiian Luau BBQ Kettle Style Potato Chips

My friend Marni has a skill, well, besides those. She has this amazing ability to win contests, contests of any kind. Recently she won a contest on Facebook and the prize, wait for it, was potato chips. She won a selection of Hawaiian Kettle Style Potato Chips, from Hawaiian Snacks, some of which she shared with French Fry Diary.

Marni gave me a whole 8 oz. bag of the Luau BBQ Potato Chips, a beautiful orange bag with pictures of Hawaiian native people barbecuing on a sunshine paradise beach, framed in lotus flowers. The bag also promises the chips to be 'sweet & spicy' and 'crispy & crunchy.'

Inside were, as promised, very crunchy and crispy kettle chips, but not so much barbecue flavor. At least not at first. There's a slow burn going on in your mouth, have some cold beverage handy, cuz it lingers. Being good kettle chips, they're great for dipping, preferably ice cream for me, as it would add a good contrast with the hot vs. cold.

Marni also got the original version, and the Maui Onion. The Originals were pretty typical. Hawaiian Snacks also makes onion snacks, in the onion and bbq flavors. All in all I was impressed, and would like give them all a try as well. Good stuff, thank you, Marni!