Process of producing a batter-coated onion product

Claim 1

A process for producing an onion food product comprising: slicing onion bulbs transversely to form slabs exhibiting concentric rings of onion scales; cutting each slab into pieces having a thickness dimension equal to the thickness of the slab, a width dimension and a length dimension greater than the width dimension by cutting along planes which are perpendicular to the plane of the slab and which are perpendicular to each other, the width and length dimensions being such that most of the pieces include a plurality of curved lengths of onion scales in side-by-side relationship; separating the onion pieces into their individual scales thereby forming nuggets; feeding the onion nuggets onto the upper surface of a generally horizontal elongated surface provided with longitudinal grooves, the surface being constructed of low-friction non-stick material and the surface being vibrated horizontally in the directions of the grooves to convey the nuggets longitudinally of the grooves and simultaneously to cause the nuggets to spread out laterally and longitudinally of the grooves so as to form discrete unagglomerated nuggets; discharging the discrete, unagglomerated nuggets to a batter-coating operation whereby the entire surface of each nugget becomes coated with batter.