Batter Up

Tonight's dinner - flat iron steak - just begged for something fried and fattening, and foraging through the fridge yielded about most of a red onion and a dozen mushrooms. So what could I do, but make a batter. (Yes, I realize that onions are not the best choice, but I figured onion rings were a better option than French fries!)

After scanning through several low carb websites, I concluded there is no "standard" batter, so I embarked on making my own variation on the theme. It took a few adjustments (and tossing out a some of the onion rings along the way), but ultimately I think I found a batter that is light and crunchy, yet has enough texture to feel substantial. I think it would be an excellent fit for some fried fish (one of my favorites with slaw), okra, zucchini, or just about anything batter dipped. Enjoy!

I tossed the first batch of onion rings because (unlike these), the batter just fell off in the oil.

However, the addition of a couple of eggs finally resulted in a batter thick enough to cling to the onions, yet crunchy enough to feel like onion rings from the local fast food joint. (Though, I really love the onion rings at Sonic Drive-In, and may yet attempt to duplicate them. They require four steps: water to flour to shake mix to bread crumbs. The flour is easy enough with carbalose, baking mix, almond meal, or some mixture thereof, and the shake mix could be duplicated with sweetened cream or melted low carb ice cream, but those bread crumbs are going to be a little tricky, I think.)



The mushrooms turned out even better than the onion rings. In my younger days, I enjoyed eating fried mushrooms with honey mustard sauce while sipping a cold brew at Ruby Tuesday's. Of course, I was a good deal thinner then! Since I wanted to skip the honey part of the sauce, I opted for thick and creamy ranch dressing with a cold diet cream soda.. (Some days I do miss that beer!)

 

Batter Fried Veggies

 

Ingredients

• Sliced red onion, mushrooms, zucchini, okra, squash, etc. (Carb count depends on the variety and amount of vegetables)
• 1/2 cup carbalose flour (9.5 net carbs - This has a much lower carb count than regular flour, but a good deal higher than almond meal. However, the combination of the two kept the batter from being too heavy, and made it ultra crispy.)
• 1/2 cup almond meal (2 net carbs)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (0 net carbs)
• 1/2 cup water (0 net carbs)
• 1-2 large eggs (0 net carbs)
• Vegetable oil for frying (0 net carbs)
• Seasoning as desired (Carb count will vary depending on your choice.)

 

Instructions

• Wash, dry, and cut to size the vegetables of your choice.
• In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients.
• Whisk in the cream, water, and egg(s). (I added extra water to begin with, so it took two eggs to make my batter stick to the veggies. With less water, one egg may do the trick. However, test a small batch to see if a second egg is needed.)
• Stir in your choice of seasonings (salt and pepper, chili powder, chipotle sauce, Old Bay, etc.)
• Dip vegetables into the batter and then fry until golden brown.
• Remove to a cookie sheet lined with paper towels, and season if necessary. Keep the veggies warm in a low oven while cooking each successive batch.

 

Note: I cooked about 30 onion rings (including the ones I tossed) and a dozen mushrooms with 1/2 cup of batter left over (which would be enough to cook another dozen mushrooms).

 

The batter has 11.5 net carbs in the entire batch. If I had cooked another set of mushrooms with the remaining batter, I would have had a total of 54 pieces. At that rate, the batter adds about .2 grams of net carbs to each piece of vegetable. One medium white mushroom contains .5 carbs, bringing the total to .7 carbs for each one and 2.8 net carbs for a serving of four battered mushrooms. The onion rings probably averaged 1.25 net carbs each before breading, bringing those to a total of 1.5 carbs each or about 7.5 net carbs for 5 onion rings (but they were worth it).