Baked Onion Rings Recipe

Do you love the onion rings from the Fast Food outlets? If you do you will love this recipe for baked onion rings as it is so much better than any available on the market.
This calls for dipping the onion rings into a milk mixture and then into a pancake mix.
I always make my own pancakes but you can substitute a bought mix if you prefer. Just make sure it is not a sweet one.

PANCAKE RECIPE:
I use a very basic one for this.
1 1/2 cups SR flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 small egg (optional)
1/4 teaspoon bi-carb soda (cooking soda)
1 tablespoon melted butter

If you don't have any buttermilk in the fridge use normal milk with 1/2 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice added to it to turn slightly sour.
Sift flour and bi-carb together and then add all other ingredients and blend throroughly together.
Set aside and allow to stand while making up the rest of the recipe for onion rings.

INGREDIENTS: ( for onion rings)

6 white onions - peeled and sliced
2 large or 3 medium size eggs - beaten
1 cup milk
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 cups homemade pancake mix or bought mixture
Oil for deep frying ( I use peanut oil)

METHOD:

Separate the sliced onions into rings.
Blend milk, eggs, salt and pepper in a bowl. Soak the onions in this for 30 minutes.
In a separate bowl, prepare the pancake mixture.
In either an electric deep fryer or a large heavy based frypan, heat the oil to recommended heat for deep frying. Do not let the oil smoke or it may be too hot. Test by dropping just 1 onion ring into the oil and check it is the right temperature.
Take onion rings out of milk mixture and dip into the pancake mix. Drop into hot oil and fry until golden brown. You will need to do this in batches as if too many at once will reduce the heat and they will not cook properly. Transfer them onto paper towels to drain off excess oil.
Pack the rings firmly but not too hard into a loaf pan and bake at 200C for approx 15 minutes then remove from oven and turn out onto a serving plate.
Serve with some dipping sauces such as sweet chili or any of your favourites.