People come to the Fort Worth Stockyards to witness its history, Western fashion, and to have a good meal. Some come because Cattlemen’s Steakhouse recently got a facelift, others because Taylor Sheridan, part-owner of the restaurant and creator of the hit TV series “Landman,” has left his mark on the place. And yet, none of that brought the restaurant its latest claim to fame. That honor goes to something smaller, crunchier, and entirely unexpected — the onion rings, which have earned the rare “Certified Delicious” seal from the National Onion Association.
Greg Yielding, executive vice president of the NOA, explains why it matters: “Today’s restaurants have many choices when it comes to their menu items. They can buy frozen, canned, or freeze-dried. But when they choose to use fresh ingredients and take the time to make an ordinary side item into a delicious serving of onion rings, they have made the conscious decision to value and serve quality. That’s an effort not every restaurant commits to.”
And what an effort it is. The kind of onion rings that earn the NOA’s nod are made from scratch, with fresh onions, hand-battered and fried just so, never greasy, never falling apart, with a crisp snap that makes the first bite a quiet revelation. “It’s kind of like, oh, onion rings, okay, well, all onion rings aren’t the same,” Yielding says. “They’re not. And they’re not the same as using fresh onions and cutting your onions and having your batter done the right way.”…