2009/01/03
Jeanette spotted some green heirloom tomatoes at the Ferry Building and immediately requested fried green tomatoes. I've always liked fried green tomatoes in theory, but the result has usually been hard, flavorless pucks that act merely as conduits for fried batter.
Don't get me wrong: I LOVE FRIED BATTER. But I don't love that hard, white part of an unripe tomato.
Also, I feel that fried green tomatoes will never be as good as the elusive, theoretical fried red tomatoes. Considering the results we achieve with hydrocolloids in various applications, there is no reason why one can't control the liquid in red tomatoes enough to let them stay crispy and keep their structure when fried. Those are in the works.
Still, I had never made fried green tomatoes, and, certain that I could achieve a result that was at least somewhat delicious, we bought a couple.
I was proved wrong: fried green tomatoes can be awesome. I discovered some things: the tomato slices need to be much thinner than the giant pieces restaurants usually fry. When you slice them thinner, the frying process more thoroughly cooks the tomato, softening it up. I settled on a thickness somewhere between 1/8-inch and 1/4-inch. Likewise, the breading can't be too thick. I rejected the typical wet batter, and instead just dredged in flour, then egg, then panko. Much lighter, but still quite crispy, and with a nicely-textured slice of tomato inside.
We had them on sandwiches, as well as off. The sandwiches--with crispy jowl bacon, arugula, red tomato, and a pimenton aioli I whipped up--were so good we had them again several days later. And rest of the fried green tomatoes we ate with just the aioli. In both cases, absolutely delicious.
Still, I've gotta chase the white whale. (Explanation: In this metaphor, I'm Ahab, this blog is Ishmael, and fried red tomatoes are Moby Dicks). So look for fried red tomatoes, coming up at some point in the distant future, if they don't drive me mad first.
Posted by Barzelay on 2009/01/03 @ 3:23 | Comments (4) | Deli
Comments
Funny coinsidence that Mr. T. had a fried green tomato BLT for lunch yesterday at a cute place in Jasper. Yes, they served wine:-) It was delicious....very flavorful tomato taste that was well balanced with the ever popular BACON flavor. I'm sure they were not heirlooms, but this is a place that is farm to table and serves local and in season items. I would rate it way above the traditional BLT.
Posted by: Mrs. T at January 3, 2009 9:36 AM
I'm guessing you've had the fried green tomato BLT at Saint-Ex in DC. Now that's a good sandwich. Definitely prompted me to make several of those at home too.
I fried red tomatoes for a vegetarian dish I did once (on top of a tarragon-scented creamed succotash-type thing). The held their shape quite nicely, and were very juicy without making the breading wet (which I guess most veggies should do if properly breaded), even though they were quite ripe to start with. Standard breading procedure. I would recommend smaller tomatoes. No hydrocolloids needed. Fry away!
Posted by: Jon F. at January 3, 2009 6:33 PM
Mrs. T, heirloom green tomatoes are not any better than non-heirloom green tomatoes. Glad he enjoyed the sandwich. There's a reason bacon is so popular.
Jon, I did have that sandwich once at Saint-Ex. I have no recollection of what I thought of it, except that I didn't have it again on subsequent visits.
And yeah, I suspected that red tomatoes might work out if fried using the same process. I've just never seen it done anywhere. I was thinking dry-farmed tomatoes might work out particularly well.
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