- Hey everybody, the recipe that I'm gonna share with
y'all today, oh my goodness, I am really walking down memory lane. I was in the best Western restaurant space over on Eisenhower here in Savannah, when appetizer flooded the market in all the restaurants and it
was called a blooming onion. And I said, bye doggy,
I'm gonna teach myself how to make a blooming onion. Because I remember they
were really really big, where I first heard of it was
one of those steak places. Eddie, what was the name? I can't remember. - [Eddie] Outback.
- Yeah, the Outback. And they were pushing
that onion like crazy. And everybody was going crazy for it. Well, I don't know how many
onions I went through y'all but I finally figured it out and night I served the
blooming onion as an appetizer. Well, it wasn't so hard
because I had a deep fryer and I could pull all
those little legs apart and really get it really
pretty and fried real good. So I'm gonna show y'all
what I taught myself to do. And they very well could
be a better easier way but I've cut the top of the
onion off just a wee little bit and now I'm gonna pull
the kind of stalky part, the outer layer of the onion, just like that. (onion skin rattling) There we go. Now we don't ever wanna
cut the rooting off. It's got to come from the top of the onion and I take my knife and go, Oh,
it's probably, I don't know, It's probably maybe a third of an inch from the root right there. Eddie, can you see? And I just come down and I'm
sure these chain restaurants, I'm sure they probably had
a machine to cut theirs. In fact, I know they did
cause I checked on it and holy kamoley, the little
bit of business I do at night, I am not paying that for
a blooming onion machine. I just prep up a few of these for the dinner hour. And I just keep going back around until, I don't know how many years it's been since I've done this
y'all, I hope it'll work. But anyway, this recipe, all
right, and see I'm to the end and that worked out perfect, didn't it? And then I'm gonna just kinda
loosen it up just like that, so you can imagine now how
pretty that's gonna be. I'm gonna cover this with
one cup of buttermilk and I'm gonna let this
soak in the refrigerator. Now depending on how big your onion is, oh, please don't come apart
on me onion, please don't. All right, so I've got
my buttermilk brine here and I'm gonna add just a
little bit of hot sauce to it, maybe a teaspoon, you know
just give it a little kick. And like I said, we're gonna just let that soak. And we got still several more steps but I want to tell y'all about this recipe that I'm sharing with y'all today. And it says, the recipe tells you, if it doesn't completely cover the onion just finish it off with ice water and that ice water is
just gonna make it crisp. 'Cause I really want that
to soak up that buttermilk. Gosh, it took a lot of water, didn't? Okay, so in the refrigerator
this goes for one hour. Okie-doke y'all were ready to kinda wrap up our blooming onion. And I was telling you that
it was in this month's issue of "Cooking With Paul, the magazine. And this is one that was
cooked in our air fryer. And so I'm gonna show you how we did it. All right now I've got a bowl for my flour and a little black pepper and I'm not gonna use
much of this red pepper because I want children
to be able to eat it should they come over. And there's our salt
and our garlic powder. So I'm just gonna mix mix, mix that up. And I'm gonna take our
onion out of our buttermilk, let it drip out the excess and then I'm gonna lay
it here in our flour and just let that flour
get all in it, in fact. To make sure it gets all in it, I'm gonna use a plate as a cover. That was pretty brave of me, wasn't it? - [Eddie] It was.
- It was real brave. But you wanna make sure
that flour gets in every one of those crevices. And in order to do that, sometimes you just have to do
drastic measures, you know. So there we go and I just wanna make sure that I get the petals apart so that the flour can get in there. And I'm gonna do that one more time. Uh-oh, I look like I got
a bad case of dandruff. (laughing) All right, so our next step is, I'm gonna break eggs, I'm gonna pull that
buttermilk out of there. (water pouring) And I'm gonna beat at least two eggs I said, I can't wait to
get back to oh boy don't, 'cause wanna get my chickens back. I have missed my little chicken. I'm gonna add just a little
bit of water to those eggs. Because we're gonna, uh-oh. (bowl rattling) I'm gonna take this
gently out of our flour. Kinda let it just dust off and just make sure I got it
all coated good with the flour. Lord have mercy, I've made so many of these things. Now we're gonna sit it right here and we'll pour this egg over it. And let that egg get all down
in those cracks and crevices. Move it to that bigger bowl. Try that trick one more time (laughing). The plate trick. Kinda that did pretty good. One more time. I think I'm pressing my luck y'all. Oh yeah, that got it good that time, okay. Okay, I'm gonna wash my hands now and then I'm gonna dump our flour out and I'm gonna put this in our flour bowl and now I'm just gonna
cover that with pea crumbs and I do love pea crumb, it's
gonna make it so crunchy. Okay, all right now I'm
gonna get the container to the air fryer out. I've kinda made a mess haven't I Eddie? - [Eddie] A little bit, just a little bit, on the counter and on you. - And on me? That's all right, we'll clean up. This looks really good y'all. You know what, I mean,
my air fryer is non-stick but I'm gonna just be on the safe side. Give that a little spray, I've never had anything sticky but I want this to be beautiful. And I'm gonna lay it right there and I'm gonna encourage those petals to open up even a little bit more. And now, I'm gonna spray this. I'm using a butter flavor non-stick because we want to get this nice and brown and crusty. So I'm gonna cook it for
five minutes at 400 degrees. See y'all in five. Okay y'all, it told us in
my magazine to cook this for five minutes and I'm gonna show y'all how beautiful this is. That is yummy looking. And I turned it in case
there's any hot spots but it really looks great. So I'm gonna cook it for five more minutes and I'm gonna turn it back. - [Theresa] But just so you know, the magazine says three. - Okay, the magazine said three minutes, but did it say at 400 in the magazine or 430?
- [Theresa] 400. - Okay 'cause this is my
newest air fryer y'all and it goes all the way up to 430. Yeah, it's a powerhouse. All right, so I'm gonna
set it on five minutes but I'll check it after three and I'm gonna make a
dipping sauce right now for our blooming onion. I think I always just served
it with ranch dressing or some kind of sauce but-- - [Theresa] So in other words you can make a very easy one yourself? - You can make it whatever
you want to y'all. How much mayonnaise does it call for? - [Theresa] Not much, a tablespoon and we know that you don't operate off of a tablespoon of mayonnaise. - Maybe two tables spoons. - [Theresa] And then-- - How much of horseradish? - [Theresa] Two tablespoons
of prepared horseradish. - Uh, that a lot of horseradish. - [Theresa] And two
tablespoons of ketchup. - But a little bit of mayonnaise. - [Theresa] That seem like a lot. - Doesn't seem like a lot. So y'all can adjust this, in fact, if you don't even like horseradish, you can find another way
to heat it up a little bit with a little cayenne or something. - [Theresa] Or you
could use honey mustard, I mean you could really use whatever. - You use whatever you like. - [Theresa] And Paula, you were saying that the onion, the really
the only reason you need to wait the hour is because the cold. - Yeah, by putting it
in their refrigerator in that cold liquid just helps
the onion to blossom out. - [Theresa] Okay, but it's not unnecessary if you were in a hurry? - You know you can do like I
did and kind of encourage it. And we were supposed
to, after we dipped it in all the ingredients, refrigerate and sit for 15 more minutes. But I just cut that step out. So y'all can do that it
can be a matter of be it. But here's my sauce,
seeing how easy that was. Taste that Teresa, please. I think it's really good. - [Theresa] You know I like horseradish. - It's really good, it tastes
like Thousand Island dressing with horseradish in it. So it's gonna be delicious. (utensils clinking) All right, let's see if our
three minutes are up back here. Oh, it's still so pretty still so pretty. I'm gonna cut up at
temperature just a little bit but I'm gonna let it run
for the full five minutes. So I'll see you in like three or four. - [Eddie] Perfect.
- Okay, I wound up cooking this like 10 minutes. - [Theresa] It's a pretty big onion. - Yeah, I would consider it
like a medium onion Theresa. Let's see, I mean. - [Theresa] Well we like our things cooked - Oh, I didn't tell
you, oh, it's so crispy. I don't know where my spatula is. - [Theresa] And look at that, no frying, no oil other than just
spraying on top of it. - The spray and there's
nothing in that spray, no calories, no fat, look at that. So you don't have to go out to eat. You can have your blooming onion at home. All right, who wants a bite kiddies? - [Eddie] Me.
- [Theresa] Me. - All right, I'm gonna
just cut us off some so we don't have to make it ugly. Okie doke, there y'all go. A blooming onion. Since I'm used to deep fried onions, I would probably set my air fryer on like 250, 275 and I
would cook it longer, yes. Yes, I would cook it a little bit longer. - [Theresa] Yum, that is so good. - But it is so good, ain't it? - [Theresa] The flavoring is really good. - So there you go with the blooming onion. If you got a deep fryer-- - [Theresa] That's not good for you. - No, but I'd sure be tempted (laughing). But it is incredible to
know I'm serving this just without any added oils or fats. (water pouring) Yum, yum.
