Fried Green Tomatoes

Last week it was suggested that I turn some of my green tomatoes into fried green tomatoes. Never one to back away from a challenge, I decided today was the day. I've never eaten fried green tomatoes, let alone made them. So I searched on the internet and found many, many variations. But the core of fried green tomatoes was some kind of seasoned cornmeal crust. I chose to turn to an expert on southern cuisine, Southern Living. Here is a link to their recipe for fried green tomatoes. I made two changes to their recipe. One was to add a healthy sprinkle of cayenne to the breading (it still wasn't enough) and the second was to eliminate the frying in oil in favor of unhealthy shortening. To me, it seemed that if I was going to have the real deal, I needed to use either shortening or lard. I just cannot do lard, so shortening it was.

And the result? I do believe I am quite fond of fried green tomatoes. :-) The breading was perfect, and the whole entity was...well...pretty darn tasty. The coating crunched up beautifully, and inside the coating the green tomato practically melted, and was full of flavor and a wonderful tang. They really are very good. In fact, they are even good at room temperature. I will likely not make them again for awhile, because I'm trying so hard to be patient with my tomatoes getting ripened. But you can be sure that when that frost warning comes, and there are green tomatoes on the vine, I will be serving up fried green tomatoes for a meal or two. I'm also trying to decide if fried green tomatoes would be good with a fried egg and bacon. ;-) That will be for another post I think.