To do this right you will need to plan and start in the morning or the night before.
Step One: The Tomato
What is a green tomato and where do I find it?
These are items best found off your own tomato plant, which is where I found mine. However, if you do not grow tomatoes you can ask a friend who does or hit a farmers market--sometimes a grocery store will carry them. The best ones are firm and are light green. A light green tomato is one that hasn't started turning red yet but it is not newly formed. The greener the tomato the younger it is. The lighter the tomato the closer it is to turning ripe. Do not use a tomato that is very green OR one that has even one spot of red or orange on it.
Why green tomatoes and not red?
You can fry red tomatoes if you want. I do not recommend it. Red tomatoes have a high water content and can make fry time lethal! Green tomatoes have less water content, the stay firmer than red ones and they can stand up to a brine. Well, what I call a brine.
I have green tomatoes now what do I do?
You need to slice them about 1/2 and inch thick. I find that they stay together better and fry better at this thickness. But do it according to your taste.
Once you slice them, put them in a colander and salt them liberally with kosher salt. I put a bowl under them to catch the liquid. The goal here is to get as much liquid out of the tomato as possible. I strongly recommend that you do this first thing in the morning.
Once you get a fair amount of liquid out or 30 minutes before you get ready to fry them you can rinse them and lay them out on a paper towel to dry. It is important that they are drained, rinsed and dried before you start. If not you will have issues with the breading sticking and the fry process.
I ended up with about a cup of liquid from this batch.
Step Two: The Fat
The way my dad learned was traditional and the way he taught me was traditional. Country cooking was the first type of cooking I was taught. The first lesson was, plan your day. If you are planning on cooking country for dinner then your breakfast is going to have the same essence.
The morning you want to make these appetizers you are going to need to render your fat. For this recipe I use bacon grease. Why? Well, when we do the breading there will be nothing fancy in it. In a country kitchen they did not have a lot of access to the spice cabinet that we have today. So they flavored through their fat, their sauces and of course by doing the simple skill of salt and peppering your naked food before cooking.
I made two packs of bacon (12 oz packages). I like apple wood smoked bacon. It has a great flavor. Bacon fat has salt in it, so I will not need to add salt at all later. I made bacon for dinner and reserved the rest for later. Since my country delights will be served on lettuce leaves I needed to make sure they were well drained.
If you retain bacon fat during the year as you cook then you can use that and forgo the bacon and just make fried green tomatoes. But you need to make sure that you have enough bacon fat. I got enough to line the bottom of the skillet.
If you need more fat, which you will, you can do the old school approach and add some lard OR shortening (the modern old school way). I will be adding shortening to mine today. I cannot tell you how much because the amount of rendered fat and the vessel size will make the difference.
I am frying in my dutch oven. So I am making sure that I have enough fat in the dutch oven to be about 2 inches high. Just enough to give it a place to float and not stick to the bottom.
You can pan fry these if you want but it I do not prefer that method.
Bacon Tip: When skillet frying bacon take it out as soon as it gets a shade of brown slightly less than your preference. Bacon grease still stick on the bacon so it will continue to cook for a minute or two when you pull it out.
If I had to guess, this batch of bacon probably rendered a cup of bacon grease. The amount will be based off of the kind of bacon you use. Regardless of the amount, I do not recommend using more bacon than you will use for the appetizers and breakfast. You can always add shortening.
You can just use vegetable oil or canola oil instead of animal fat. As I mentioned before, this how to is more about the old school way of cooking.
Step Three: The Dredge
I used flour for bowl one and panko for bowl two.
You can also use cornmeal or flour or a mix of the two. If you mix the two mix them 50/50.
If you want to get fancy you can add spices or use a prepackaged fry mix. Since I plan on salt and peppering the tomato I am not going to add anything to the dry. I also use self rising flour when I fry with flour. You can use all purpose, but self rising fries better.
You will need to create a dredge station. It is three bowls.
Bowl 1 is the flour
Bowl 2 is two eggs beaten with a bit of milk or butter milk. Not a lot just a smidgen.
Bowl 3 is the panko.
Usually you will go from bowl 1 to 2 to 3. But in my experience it works better if you go.
Bowl 2 to 1 to 2 to 3. I feel the batter sticks better this way.
You may have to pat it on.
DO NOT DREDGE UNTIL JUST BEFORE YOU ARE READY TO FRY! This is important. If you do it too soon the egg will totally take over the dredge and the final outcome is not pretty.
Step Four: The Fry
Some people use a thermometer. I never was taught that way so I never use it. But, once you commit to putting hot grease on your stove top you should not walk away from it!
DO NOT start your grease on high heat. Keep it med to high. I set it on 6 1/2 on my dial. You will have a more consistent temperature.
To tell if you oil is read toss a sprinkle of the dredge in the oil. If it pops and fizzles and starts to float it is ready. If there is no real reaction then it is too cold. If the oil is smoking it is too hot. Depending on how much you are going to fry you may end up with smoking oil. Just turn it down a little.
**The three on the right are flour and the rest are panko. **
Once your oil is ready put only a couple tomatoes in the fry. Use the end pieces of the tomato first, just in case you discover the oil is not ready. Then you will not ruin the bigger pieces.
Fry until they are golden brown on both sides. Remove it and then place them on a cookie rack to drain.
THE COOKIE RACK: Spray this with cooking spray and then put paper towels under it to catch the grease. By just putting the final fried tomato on a paper towel it will sit in its own grease and make the tomato soggy. This way the grease will drain and the tomato will not turn into a soggy mess.
Step Five: Serve
When I served this I did it as a platter with one assembled. This will give everyone a chance to put their own together the way they want. I also add what is known as "fry sauce" which is just a mayo ketchup mixture. This makes a great appetizer and you can make them a short time in advance and serve them room temp or keep them warm in the oven. You can also pull them together right out of the fryer. It is totally up to you.
I hope that you will try your hand at traditional frying at least once. It is a skill worth knowing, even if you will not use it daily. And it is a good way to remind yourself of how blessed we are to have access to such wonderful and diverse ingredients in our local grocery!
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