Blooming onion
dish consisting of one large onion which is cut to resemble a flower, battered, and deep-fried
A blooming onion, also called onion bloom, onion blossom, onion flower, bloomin' onion, or onion mum, is a dish consisting of one large onion, cut to resemble a flower (after it has expanded while soaking in ice water), battered, and deep-fried, often served with dipping sauce. It is served as an appetizer at some restaurants.
History
References to an "onion mum" consisting of an onion cut into the shape of a flower date as far back as 1947, though this dish did not fry or cook the onion. The more popular fried version of the dish was likely invented by Jeff Glowski in 1985 at New Orleans restaurant Russell's Marina Grill, where future Outback Steakhouse founder Tim Gannon worked at the time.
The dish was popularized in the United States when it appeared as the "Bloomin' Onion", a charter feature of the Outback Steakhouse when that national chain opened in 1988. It is usually served with a restaurant-specific signature dipping sauce. Despite the name's familiarity and frequent use as a generic term, "Bloomin' Onion" is a registered trademark and Outback's owners have issued legal threats to numerous restaurants over their use of similar names.
From June 21, 2016, Outback Steakhouse began serving a limited-time-only variant of the Bloomin' Onion, the Loaded Bloomin' Onion.
Nutrition
The egg wash and deep frying preparation process of the dish means it is high in food energy; a single blooming onion with dressing contains approximately 6,900 kilojoules (1,660 kilocalories) and 87 grams of fat. In 1997, a study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found a fat content of 116 grams, including a combined 44 grams of saturated and trans fat.
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This entry incorporates text from “Blooming onion” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.