Fried Green Tomatoes

I love tomatoes in every shape and form from cherry tomatoes to big fat heirloom tomatoes – eaten raw, served on salads, and sandwiches like the classic Tomato Sandwich, and cooked in sauces. Most of these forms of tomato-goodness are simple to create at home.

But one type of tomato, the Southern specialty Fried Green Tomatoes, has always intimidated me. I love them in restaurants, served as an appetizer or on a sandwich with bacon and pimento cheese. But I have never been brave enough to try them at home. Until now.

Incidentally, it’s origins are not originally Southern. What?!? Yep, apparently the origins of the recipe can be traced back to the Northeast and the Midwest, perhaps having roots in Jewish kitchens.

The South, however, adopted it with open arms. This may or may not be due in large part to a certain book written by the very-Southern author Fannie Flagg, “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.” This book was turned into the movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes,” and is a wildly popular story about the bonds of female friendships.

Anyway, I did not grow up in a Southern home, so we did not fry foods frequently. The general idea of frying scares me, as hot oil can get you into a world of trouble. But I began to think it was something I should try. After all, it may be featured in highfalutin restaurants, but it’s humble beginnings come from home-cookin’.

So, I set out to my local farmers market to get me some green tomatoes. Incidentally, the popularity of the dish is reflected in the price. I paid $2.49 a pound for unripened fruit. For some reason, I find this amusing. But the end result is worth the cost.

I did some research online and recipes vary widely. If you are Southern, you may have a family recipe. Lots of people use cornmeal and flour as the breading, some use bread crumbs. The spices mixed into the breading also vary, as do sauces to eat with the tomatoes.

I opted for a combination of things I found. I used cornmeal and flour, and added some more spices to the mixture. I did use the traditional method of dunking the tomatoes in buttermilk before breading them. I followed another recipe and added some hot sauce to the buttermilk, too.

I also learned you need to sweat the tomatoes. This means laying them out on paper towels and sprinkling them with salt. As they sit, the salt brings out extra moisture, assuring your fried green tomatoes don’t get too soggy and floppy. No one likes that!

The tricky part comes in the actual frying. All traditional recipes tell you to use a good cast iron pan. I do have one of these, but it’s small and ridged. I used it nonetheless. If I get into this frying gig, or try some other good ol’ Southern recipes, I might need to get me something like this cast iron pan on Amazon. Maybe I’ll tell Santa….

You want the oil to be hot but not smoking, which indicates it’s starting to burn. I cook on a flat-top electric range, which makes controlling the heat a bit more difficult. I added the oil to the pan, plus one tablespoon of butter. One recipe suggested this to add for flavor and help with browning.

I heated it on medium high to start, then turned down the heat as needed. Because my pan is small, I cooked 4 slices at a time, if you have a larger pan, you can do more at a time.

Once both sides are golden brown, you can move them to a plate lined with paper towels to draw out some of the oil. Do not stack them, but leave them in a single layer.

To keep them hot while you finish off the frying, you can use a baking sheet and place a metal cooling rack on top of the baking sheet and place the tomatoes on the rack, in a single layer again. Pop them in an oven heated to 200º until you are ready to serve them.

I whipped up a sauce that sounded like it would compliment the tomatoes, not smother them with too many other strong flavors. I combined more buttermilk with some plain greek yogurt and added green onions, bacon, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Simple but delicious.

I learned from my first adventure in fried green tomatoes. First of all, I learned that a flat-bottomed pan would help my tomatoes cook more evenly. I also learned that you can add a lot of flavor by simply adding a dash more salt to the fried tomatoes when they are still warm, right out of the pan.

The most important thing I learned was to pay more attention when shopping. True confession time: I wanted authentic North Carolina corn meal, so I purchased mine from the farmers market. When I went to the stall that carries it, I was overwhelmed by their assortment. White corn, yellow corn, spicy mix, hush puppy mix, etc. Long story short, I grabbed stone ground grits instead of corn meal.

This is really just a technicality, as grits ARE corn meal, just a courser grind. Had I caught this little blunder before I was completely done with the process and reviewing my photos, I could have mashed the meal a bit more in my mortar and pestle, but I did not catch it until totally done. This is why my recipe is Crunchy Fried Green Tomatoes.

The mistake adds a bit more crunch to the tomatoes, but it is not at all unpleasant. I did list cornmeal in the recipe, but if you feel like trying out my goof, go for grits.

This mistake leaves me with grits to use, so perhaps I will share a shrimp and grits recipe in the near future.

Recipe adapted from www.thehungrybluebird.com and http://www.italianbellavita.com

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