Whether it’s tailgating or homegating, fans of the Buffalo Bills are known to be elite tier when it comes to food. Wingin’ It returns for it’s eighth season of Mad Hatter-esque recipes taking inspiration from the Buffalo Bills and their opponents.
Here at Buffalo Rumblings we like to honor football history. With the New England Patriots coming to town, Wingin’ It wants to celebrate the team’s dynasty. That’s right! It’s cheater week, where I take shortcuts to make my life easier while still delivering results.
This week’s recipe is a Tidy Joey. A Sloppy Joe variant that uses onion rings to help keep your lap clean! I’m cheating this edition by using my own recipe for Sloppy Joe meat found here, and simply doing a quick run through of the beer batter and frying process for the onion rings.
Makes: About four servings
Active Time: 10-15 minutes
Total Time: 10 - 15 minutes
Canola oil
1 large onion (I prefer red)
2 cups flour, divided
3/4 cup beer
Salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste
Sloppy Joe meat (see separate recipe)
Hamburger buns
You will need: Sauté pan, long handled fork or tongs, mixing bowl, pie tin or similar for dredging, paper towels
Wingin’ It Tips and Prep Gallery
If I’m being completely honest, I’ve done a batter recipe before too. This is a little bit of a different version so it’s technically new, but the real recipe here is the assembly. I’m honestly floored at how well the onion rings prevent the sandwich from bursting. And they’re delicious. I do have a few tips to share while we’re at it.
The batter isn’t an exact science, but luckily there’s some wiggle room with what will work. There’s a GIF right below showing the viscosity that I used, but you can go a little thicker too. Start with three-quarters of a cup of beer and go from there. You’ll also notice little lumps. That’s totally fine, they cook right out.
With the salt and seasoning, when I say “to taste” I do not mean taste the batter. Don’t eat raw flour. Rather, it’s a move to season “to preference.” Instead, make one onion ring, let it cool and eat it then adjust from there. I used about a teaspoon of salt, but some of you might like (or require) more or less.
When it comes to the dredging, for most things you want complete coverage in all dredging steps. That’s not the case with onions rings. Batter will cling to anything dry. Flour clings to anything wet. You’ll likely notice that during the flour dredge a significant portion of the onion will not have flour on it. Why? Those parts of the onion are too dry for the flour to stick. What does batter stick to? Dry things. Don’t sweat it. Give them a light toss in the flour and move on to the batter.
Speaking of that, you might worry the batter is too thin and it won’t coat well enough to give the thick, crispy coating we all love. Beer and flour play very well together and that thin coat of batter is about to puff up once it hits the oil.