FRIED GREEN TOMATOES- "Jersey" style

One day last week I came home to find a mountain of green tomatoes in my kitchen. Apparently my husband cleaned out his tomato plants for the season. I put a few of them in a bowl to show you how pretty they are!

After admiring their beauty for a few minutes though, I thought, "What the heck am I gonna do with all of these green tomatoes?"

The next day I asked my dad about them (he was quite the tomato gardener in his day) and he said "Don't worry, they will turn red eventually." Phew! That was a relief.


But not so fast, Fifi! Because then that night my husband said to me "Wouldn't it be fun to try making fried green tomatoes?" I replied with a very unenthusiastic "Mmm hmm", hoping he would just forget about it. The thought of messing up the kitchen frying tomatoes was not appealing to me.

But alas, a few days later he politely asked: "So when do you think you will be making the fried green tomatoes?"

So I reluctantly decided that I would give it a try. I looked around for recipes, and it was interesting to find that there are many different ways to prepare them. You can use flour, cornmeal, crushed saltine crackers, corn flakes, bread crumbs, or a combination of these.

Here is what I used:
flour with salt & pepper
egg
bread crumbs
a mixture of veg. oil and butter for frying

I dipped the tomato slices into the egg, then flour mixture, then egg again, then bread crumbs.

Then I fried them up. They browned very quickly! If I were to do it again, I would put it on a lower heat so they would cook a little slower. I also think I would use butter only instead of butter and oil.

As I suspected, my counter top was a mess! But after a final shake of sea salt on top of the finished product, my platter of fried green tomatoes was ready to serve. Knowing that I wouldn't want to go thru the effort of assembling a main course as well, I served the tomatoes with a prepared rotisserie chicken I had purchased earlier that afternoon.

So how was it? Well, I got mixed reviews. Randy, of course, LOVED them.

My daughters thought they were weird, not blog-worthy.

As for me, I enjoyed trying something different, and it was an interesting mixture of a crispy-cooked outside with a very fresh tasting inside. The bread crumbs gave it an Italian tasting twist, which probably wouldn't fly with traditional southern cooks. So I guess you can call this the "Jersey" version of fried green tomatoes.

I definitely found it very cool that the inside retained it's vivid green coloring!!

Please let me know if you try making these, and do share your ideas for different ingredients, etc. Or, if you have made them before, I would love to know your recipe!

Tune in next week when I take a break from cooking and try a decorating experiment......Ta ta for now!