Flying & Frying
Today be and i decided we needed to eat fried green tomatoes. Using the Biscuit's recipe published in Rachel Ray's $40 a Day (Lake Isle Press) (Thanks P!), we hurried to the Farmers' Market in Union Square during our errands and picked up 4 hardass green tomatoes. Only one vender had green tomatoes at all, but many had corn, fresh herbs and ripe tomatoes. Today's mission was solely for green tomatoes; good thing they had em, or we'd be banging our heads in sadness.
I followed the recipe to a T - even getting celery salt, onion powder and grinding 1 whole T of black pepper. I made the chutney first, which contained: cashews, cilantro, jalepeno, honey and white vinegar. I know this mixture sounds strange but it was absolutely delicious. We don't have a food processor so i chopped and mashed everything together by hand.
Next you prep the green tomatoes, lightly flour them, dunk them in egg & milk, dredge them in a seasoned flour+cornmeal mixture and fry until golden crisp. (Of course you must use a big cast iron skillet or else it wouldn't be right.) Our 4 tomatoes made about 16 slices, which was plenty for dinner for 2. It was really enough for 4 people though!
They tasted great! The sweet and spicy chutney is so flavorful and rich. I don't even like cashews but this chutney kicks ass. The tomatoes had a crisp, cornmealy crust that contrasted well with the softer, slightly acidic green tomato inside. Our batch was almost just like the Biscuit's version (the recipe is on point) but i do recall their tomato slices being thinner than the suggested 1/2". I also just realized i forgot to add the crumbled feta on top! But it was already so tasty i didn't notice anything was missing. Note that although the recipe calls for 4 medium green tomatoes, the recipe makes enough chutney, egg & milk and flour mixtures to be enough for 8 tomatoes. I guess "medium" is subjective, but i sure ended up with a ton of leftover crust materials.
Too bad we didn't have some real sweet tea!
*Fried green tomatoes "...really started getting to be a popular dish during the Depression. People would fry up most anything and pretend it was meat or fish, and actually, as it turned out, a pitcher of sweet iced tea and a plate of fried green tomatoes turned out to be a delightfully tasty and light summer supper..." (Fannie Flagg, Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), 74.)
posted by beXn @ 2:25 AM
2 Comments:
Ooh, which vendor at the Greenmarket sold the green tomatoes? Ever since I saw the eponymously named movie, I've wanted to try fried green tomatoes, but supermarkets don't sell them, and I don't think most outdoor market vendors will either -- well, not here in NYC, anyway.
About restaurants: there are some I like, or some I'm curious about, but I don't think I'd consider them a "favorite". Teany in the Lower East Side makes a good fake turkey sandwich, and I like the huge variety of tea, but I find myself always picking from the slender selection of non-caffeinated tea if it's getting late, and I usually have those teas at home anyway. I think more could be done with the food, but hey, maybe this is how Moby likes it.
The vendor which sold green tomatoes was on the Northwest corner of Union Square on Saturday. The green tomatoes were in a little box to the front side, which we would've easily missed if someone was standing in the way. The Flying Biscuit's recipe was excellent; Fannie Flagg's book also lists 3 different versions but i haven't tried them yet. If i ever grow tomatoes, i suspect many of them will be picked green just for this dish!
I've been to Teany a handful of times. I want to try their "afternoon tea" but next time i'll be sure to check out this fake turkey sandwich! BTW i've heard negative things about Franchia, another vegetarian tea house.
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