Recipe: Fried Green Tomatoes

The Summer Treat That'll Make You Shout "Towanda!"

(and don't worry, in this case the secret's NOT in the sauce...)

After spending the occational on and off afternoon over the past two years watching the Neelys get uncomfortably familiar with one another on Food Network I decided it was time to try one of the few of their recipes that I've been collecting with the intent to try them at some point (believe it or not, once you get past the urge to tell them to get a room they actually have, what appears to be, some really good stuff to share). Well, it being that time of year here in Florida the answer was clear: Fried Green Tomatoes (after all these years the knee jerk response is to continue that phrase with "served hot".) 

One Summer my parents were up visiting me and Chad at our house in North Georgia. Looking for something to do we decided that we'd all go to the Apple Festival in Elijay, GA (near Blue Ridge). I'd heard a lot of hype about the fried apple pies and it was a good day for it so away we went. In a nutshell this is what we came away with: 

Panorama Farms, Elijay, GA
You want apples? They've got apples (and so much more!)
Everything from multiple apple varieties, apple butter, a
truly fantastic apple barbeque sauce and so much more... 

1. The Apple Festival is hot, crowded and surprisingly light on apples. (Chad and I later learned that if you want good stuff, apple wise, in North Georgia you want to hit Panorama Farms, also in Elijay. The have orchard tours and all kinds of apple products PLUS a fantastic candy counter with some of the best fudge you'll ever eat. I digress...) 

2. I was introduced to the Great Pyrenees dog breed and have since developed a huge love of them (there was a man there with two of those fantastic gentle giants and I got to spend lots of time with them while waiting for the school bus that would take us back to our car.) And  Finally...

3. The best fried green tomatoes in the world are currently being made by a little old couple living in the north Georgia mountains. It was the first time that Chad had ever had them and he became obsessed with their tart salty goodness.

I won't waste time rewriting a recipe that has been written perfectly well by those that have the right to claim it as their own so, instead, I'll just include the link to the recipe, show you a picture of my finished product and add a few notes and hints as help. I will, of course, put the link last so you have to read my whole blog entry. ;-) 

Here are the issues that came up for me:

• Make sure that you don't buy your tomatoes until the day you're going to make them. There's a reason you can only buy them during season. I bought 4 green tomatoes yesterday and wound up with 2 green tomatoes, one orange and green striped tomato and one tomato that will now be used on a sandwich because it was too red to ever be called a fried green tomato. If you don't want them to continue ripening on you I repeat: buy at the last possible second.
• The panko bread crumbs are great and add great crunch but watch them carefully so that they don't over brown.
• Make sure that you salt them enough. You've already opted to batter and fry a vegetable, now's not the time to be health conscious. I didn't salt mine enough and ended up needing to salt them again after. (On the other side of that, however, you don't have to worry about them being too salty if you opt to do it that way.)
• My stuff is in boxes and I refuse to re-buy things that I already have (or in this case, that I already have two of) and Chad's mom isn't crazy about spending too much time in the kitchen so I didn't have a thermometer to watch the temperature of the oil (fyi, I opted for peanut oil). I found a fantastic site with 3 options of how to know if your oil is hot enough. The bread test worked perfectly (apparently a kernel of popcorn from a microwave popcorn bag doesn't pop like a normal kernel would. Eh, live and learn!).  

I think those were the key points. I didn't make the dipping sauce that they have with the recipe but it might be worth a try too. I went simple, myself, and opted for buttermilk ranch dressing or nothing at all. All and all these fried green tomatoes would make a great addition to your 4th of July picnic or cook out. Here's your link to the recipe since you were such complete and attentive blog readers. Happy eating! :D