Fried Green Tomatoes

My family and I are trying to add some more vegetables into our diet, so the other day when I saw these beautiful green tomatoes at Redner's supermarket, I decided to get them! I thought I remembered my Dad liking fried green tomatoes, but I was wrong. We did enjoy watching the movie together when I was a kid though.

I sliced up the tomatoes, placed them on a paper towel on a tray, and sprinkled with salt. The salt was to help draw out excess water. You could just dry off, bread and fry same day, but I wrapped them and set them in a fridge for about 24 hours. I knew it would save me a few steps to have the tomatoes ready for breading after work, versus trying to do everything all at once.

I poured roughly a cup of milk in a bowl as I did not have buttermilk, then I put roughly a cup of flour in a second bowl, and finally some bread crumbs with spices in the third bowl. The bread crumbs had parsley, garlic powder, salt and onion powder mixed in. You could certainly add something spicy for a kick if you so choose, and keep in mind the salt. I was light on the salt, but my remoulade had creole seasoning which added more salt to the taste in the end. You can always add more seasoning, but you can't take it away.

The tomatoes were dipped in the flour, one at a time, then the milk, then the breading mix. Once all the slices were coated in the breading, I heated a cast iron pan about a quarter of the way full of vegetable oil, to 350 degrees. Carefully, I placed 4-5 slices in the pan at a time, laying them in the pan away from me as to not splash myself with hot oil. Depending on the size of the pan and the slices, it's better to do fewer slices at a time and more batches than to try and put too many tomatoes in the pan. That is key anytime you fry something. I did not time them, but I looked for a golden crispy look and some browning before removing them from the pan. I did flip them once while they were in the pan, again, I didn't time this, but I looked for it to start to get golden around the sides before I flipped.

When I was done I held them in the toaster oven to keep warm while my mom finished up the rest of our dinner. I threw together a remoulade sauce based on a quick glance at a recipe online. I did not measure anything, but, I can give you an idea of what was involved. The main ingredient was mayonaise (I would not suggest a mayo substitute)

and after that a bit of dijon mustard (you could use a spicy brown), Tabasco sauce (could use any hot sauce), garlic powder, lime juice (a few drops), pickle juice (roughly a tablespoon), paprika and creole seasoning. I did not have the horseradish for it that I wanted. I also did not add salt because of the creole seasoning. There was a nice kick to the remoulade and it added a little more salt to my fried tomatoes. As my mom thought the breading could use just a bit more when she tested one without the remoulade.

This is a rather quick and easy dish, and you could always slice up and core the tomatoes ahead of time and mix the remoulade, or another dipping sauce ahead of time. I did not do a heavy breading, and you could air fry them to make them a bit more healthy. My mom, boyfriend and I enjoyed them. The green tomatoes were sweet, and the remoulade was spicy, so it was a nice sweet n' spicy combo!