What has 250% of your daily recommended sodium intake,
but is more than worth gobbling down anyway? Outback’s Bloomin’ Onion,
of course! Let’s take a look at how this deep fried masterpiece is sliced, flavored, and fried!
How do you make a shareable appetizer that can feed four people out of a single onion?
You start with an enormous bulb. Specifically, a super colossal onion, a term that is used in the
onion industry. A super colossal must be at least 4 and a quarter inches wide at its thickest point.
Outback claims that their onions weigh about one pound each after they're prepped and cooked.
Since they sell about 14 million a year, they go through literal tons of onions.
These aren't just any super colossals, either. Outback partners with 15 farmers in four states
who grow exclusively for the chain. This ensures that every onion you order at Outback
tastes pretty much the same, regardless of what part of the country you live in.
When Bloomin' Onions were introduced, Outback employees cut every petal by hand. The chain's
menu still says that the Bloomin' Onion is "hand-carved," which is true by a very loose
definition of that term. With the volume of Bloomin's that Outback sells, it makes
sense to use a machine, as cutting a Bloomin' Onion by hand is difficult and time-consuming.
Now they're carved with a medieval-looking contraption called the Nemco 55700 Easy Flowering
Onion Cutter to make the perfect petal slices. You push the onion through the machine with a
hand-operated lever, so technically you could say that using the machine counts as "hand-carving."
If you're a true Bloomin' Onion fan willing to dish $515, you can buy a Nemco of your own online.
Outback claims co-founder Tim Gannon invented the Bloomin' Onion in 1988,
and that it's a "secret family recipe." While Gannon invented Outback's signature
seasoning blend and the Bloomin' sauce that distinguishes their dish from any imitators,
deep-fried onion flowers had been around for years before the first Outback Steakhouse opened.
Gannon admits the first person he saw prepare the dish was his friend Jeff Glowski, who was the chef
at a New Orleans restaurant called Russell's Marina Grill. New Orleans cooks are deep-frying
masters, so it's no surprise this crunchy delicacy was an instant hit. Ironically, Glowski opened
a New Orleans-style restaurant in Australia, marketing his onion flower as a Louisiana treat.
By the time Gannon debuted the Bloomin' Onion at Outback,
he'd already introduced it to several other restaurants. These years gave him a chance
to research and develop the perfect appetizer we enjoy at Outback today.
The Bloomin' Onion breading is seasoned with Outback's signature blend.
The recipe contains 17 secret spices that have yet to be identified,
even by employees. A self-proclaimed former Outback cook, called PotatoGuy123 on Reddit,
shared that the flour mixture for coating the onion arrives pre-mixed.
The main identifiable ingredient is paprika, which is the most common spice in copycat recipes.
Another ex-employee, Reddit user Uoarti, says the coating contains
cayenne. Both Redditors mention the breading was applied by dipping the onion in seasoned flour,
then an egg wash, then flour again.
If you thought 17 spices was a lot for breading, wait until you get a load of the Bloomin' sauce,
which contains a whopping 37 secret ingredients. Most copycat recipes list ketchup
as an ingredient, but according to Redditor PotatoGuy123, ketchup is NOT in the sauce.
Bloomin' sauce also contains mayo and horseradish, which are two details almost
everyone gets right. Ex-employees also mention that two curveballs
which don't show up in copycat recipes are milk and Frank's Red Hot.
If this photo e rack from Outback can be trusted, the spice mix has several types
of peppercorns in it, as well as ground chile powder and herbs. As for the other secret parts
of Outback's seasoning mix, probably only career Outback employees know, and they're not telling.
"That's classified.”
“What?”
“That's classified. I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you."
No one expects a Bloomin' Onion to be a health food, but it's still impressive how much gluttony
Outback is able to pack into a simple vegetable. The Bloomin' Onion contains 1350 calories,
over half of one's daily recommended. It also contains about 2.5 times the
average daily amount of sodium, as well as almost 70% of your daily recommended fat.
Shockingly, it contains only 34 grams of sugar.
The Bloomin' Onion makes high blood pressure and heart disease taste
really good. A Yale study found that fatty, salty, and sweet foods like the Bloomin' Onion
act almost like psychoactive drugs, stimulating the parts of your brain that experience pleasure.
Onions are one of nature's most delicious and widely-used foods,
and the key to unlocking their potential lies in some interesting chemistry.
A sulfur compound called thiosulfate is responsible for the zesty flavor of raw onions,
and that compound is only produced once you cut into the onion and damage its cellular structure.
This releases an enzyme called alliinase that reacts with other chemicals in the onion to
form thiosulfate. By cutting their onions into petals, Outback initiates this chemical reaction.
Whole onions are great, but their problem is a very low surface-area-to-volume ratio.
This is an issue for a crispy, fried appetizer, as you want the maximum ratio of crunchy breading
to soft, bland interior. The Bloomin' Onion's cutting technique dramatically increases the
surface area of the onion, turning a rough sphere into a beautiful blossom
with a target of 200 petals. But what makes the breading of a Bloomin' Onion so tasty?
It's the combo of two chemical phenomena: the Maillard reaction and caramelization.
The Maillard reaction happens when high heat transforms proteins into tasty new chemical
compounds. Caramelization is a similar process, only it transforms sugar rather than proteins.
The wheat flour in the Bloomin' Onion's breading contains both proteins and sugars, so it benefits
from both delicious chemical reactions. Who knew science could taste so amazing?
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