Oven-Fried Onion Bloom With Tangy Dipping Sauce

By LadyJ1114

Ingredients

• For the onion:
• 1 large Spanish sweet onion
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup low-fat milk
• 3/4 cup white whole-wheat flour, divided
• 3/4 cup whole-wheat panko bread crumbs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon expeller-pressed canola oil
• For the dipping sauce
• 1/2 cup organic canola-oil mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons natural ketchup
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin

Preparation

Step 1

To make the onion: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place a cooling rack on a cookie sheet.

To slice the onion, cut 1/2 inch off the stem end and cut the hairy knob off the root end, being careful to leave the root intact so the bloom stays together. Peel off the skin. Using a very sharp knife, cut the onion like a pie into 16 wedges. Slice the onion about three-fourths of the way through, leaving the root intact. Soak the onion in a bowl of ice water for 30 minutes.

In a wide shallow dish, beat egg and stir in milk. In a second shallow dish, add 1/2 cup flour. In a third shallow bowl, combine bread crumbs, paprika, garlic powder, Cajun seasoning, black pepper and salt. Drizzle in the oil while stirring.

Remove onion from the water and gently spread its petals open. Ladle milk mixture into the onion, gently separating the petals, to coat well. Then coat the onion in flour, again spreading open the petals of the onion to coat between them. Avoid forcing flour into the onion’s deep crevices so the center won’t be soggy. Coat the onion in milk mixture again, using the same procedure. Add the remaining 1/4 cup flour to bread-crumb mixture. Coat onion in the bread-crumb mixture, separating the petals to ensure as much coverage as possible.

Place the onion on the rack and bake for 30 minutes, loosely covering just the top of the onion with tin foil after 5 minutes, to prevent burning the tips. Continue baking for 25 minutes or until the center of the onion is fork tender and no longer crunchy.

To make the dipping sauce, stir together all of the sauce ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Serve onion bloom immediately with dipping sauce.

Makes 6 servings.

Per Serving: 169 calories, 8 g total fat (1 g saturated fat, 0trans fat), 349 mg sodium, 12 mg cholesterol, 18 g total carbohydrate, 4 g protein.