Making Fried Green Tomatoes – 2 Recipes
Filed Under: Do It Yourself, recipe on September 24, 2009
Well, the end of the outdoor growing season is upon us here in Wyoming (and most of the northwest). Sunday night was officially our killing frost, so my wife and I went out and picked all of what was left in the garden and brought it in Sunday afternoon. There were a lot more green tomatoes than I’d expected.
So what do you do with all those tomatoes? Green tomatoes have a lot of great uses and I plan to pickle some and will show you how that’s done in a later post. Fresh green tomatoes, though, can be made into fried green tomatoes, which is a great southern tradition.
I made two basic recipes of fried green tomatoes, neither one of which required Julia Robert’s presence.
Traditional Style: The first recipe is a traditional style and is my favorite. These are a great breakfast or brunch treat with a little butter or they can be mixed with fried squash as part of a dinnertime vegetable extravaganza.
What you’ll need:
- A few green tomatoes of any size, cleaned and sliced to about a quarter inch thick (in rounds).
- Eggs (enough to coat all of your cut tomatoes), lightly whipped with a fork.
- Corn meal (preferably non-GMO).
- Salt and pepper and spices to taste; I prefer black pepper and chives.
I prefer to mix the spices into the whipped egg, as shown, but you can also sprinkle them on the tomato slices themselves before dipping or add them after the cornmeal is applied. It’s all the same, really. The procedure for coating the tomatoes is pretty simple and fans of breaded pork or squash will know how it’s done already. Just dip the tomato slices into the egg, coating them thoroughly, then drop them into the bowl of dry corn meal and coat well.
Then drop the slices into a frying pan with a shallow pool of hot oil over low-medium heat. I prefer regular vegetable oil or butter for this. If making these for dinner with squash, olive oil ads a little extra flavor. For breakfast, bacon grease makes a great breakfast bonus to the taste as well.
Fry the slices until the meal is browned on one side, then flip and brown that side. It takes 2-3 minutes per side. Then remove from the pan and repeat until all of your tomato slices have been coated and fried.
A few notes here: I keep just a little cornmeal at a time in the dipping bowl and ad to it as needed. This saves cornmeal, which you can’t put back into the can since it’ll have raw egg in it. It also keeps the corn meal from clumping up too much. Some people like to place the fresh-from-the-pan fried tomatoes on a paper towel or a cloth to seep some of the excess oils out of them. That’s up to you.
Non-Traditional Recipe: This is my wife’s favorite way to eat them and they are quite good in the morning in lieu of pancakes/flapjacks. They can be dipped in ketchup, honey, maple syrup, or spread with butter. They go very well with eggs and bacon and taste awesome if fried in bacon grease.
What you’ll need:
- Green tomatoes, cleaned and sliced (as above) to about a quarter inch thick.
- 1-1/2 cups of corn meal (get the GMO kind, it’s your health, not mine)
- 3/4 cup of water
- 1/2 tablespoon of corn starch
- 1 tablespoon of honey (or to taste)
- a pack of Marlboros (optional, goes well with GM foods)
- a knuckle of ground ginger, nutmeg, or cinnamon
- 1 egg (medium or large)
Mix the corn meal, water, starch, honey, spice, and egg with a wisk until well blended. If you have a favorite cornbread recipe, you can replace all of these ingredients and use that instead, since that’s basically what this is. What you’re after is that batter and sweet bread makes the best when fried.
Heat your pan and grease/oil to low-medium so the grease is hot, but the burner is low. Dip the sliced tomatoes into the batter, coating thoroughly, and put into the pan before the batter drips off. This creates little pocket pancakes (as shown) with the green tomato at center. Brown on one wide, flip and brown again. Takes about three minutes for each side.
Remove from heat and serve. My wife loves these and I think they’re good, though I prefer traditional fried green tomatoes. This recipe makes little flapjacks or thin biscuits with tomato in the middle and is very tasty.
Have a favorite recipe for fried green tomatoes? Does it include Julia Roberts? Tell me about it!
Related posts:
- Recipes – Breaded Fried Chicken and Squash
- DIY – Making Easy-Prep Salsa
- Recipe – Green Tomato Casserole
Comments (2)
Great Idea,I only knew the Movie Fried Green Tomatoes, but we have some in the glasshouse and they seem to be not doing anything.So I will have to try this because they will not go Red with the Irish Summer even if they are in a glasshouse
Awesome, thanks. Let me know how it turns out. You can also ripen them in a paper sack (vented) in a dark, relatively dry space. We put several in the cupboard to do this. They are also pretty good dried as seasoning for soups and such.