Southern Fried Green Tomatoes

Southern fried green tomatoes are a summertime classic! They’re perfect served with Alabama white barbecue sauce for dipping.

Summer means a few things for me: summer break (now a thing of the past, since I went back to work last Friday), peaches that are so juicy you can hardly peel or eat them without getting covered in syrupy juice (recipe using those coming Saturday!), and tomatoes so perfectly soft and drippy that I’m happy to eat them off a plate, no seasoning required. Tomato sandwiches (white bread, tomato, and mayonnaise) are a throwback to my childhood and BLTs, for a short time, become so much more about the tomatoes than about the bacon…and that’s saying something.

This year we planted a square foot garden. It takes out a lot of the work of traditional gardening, what with all the digging and the tilling, and it’s pretty simple. Four different kinds of tomatoes are growing in our front yard (the grape tomatoes have by far been the most prolific) and we apparently have mostly late-blooming tomato plants. We’ve only collected four or five ripe (or ready to ripen on the counter) tomatoes from the full-sized tomato plants, though many green tomatoes are waiting their turn.

A few years ago, I would have lamented my lot in life. Why all the green tomatoes? A few years ago I didn’t even like green tomatoes. Something changed, though I don’t remember what, and now Southern fried green tomatoes are as much of a treat for me as the caprese salad I ate for lunch on Friday with my grape tomatoes, cubes of soft mozzarella, and basil julienne drenched in olive oil and red wine vinegar.

Now, traditional Southern fried green tomatoes are usually dredged in a little cornmeal and fried up (similar to homestyle Southern fried okra) and I love them that way. However, my addiction to my homemade fried pickles made me think about how good that batter would be on green tomatoes. For some reason, it didn’t stick as well to the tomatoes as to the pickles…nothing a dredge in cornstarch couldn’t fix. A dipping sauce of white barbecue sauce-an Alabama tradition that I hadn’t tried until I made it recently to go with chicken-is a perfect foil to the crispy battered tart tomatoes.

How do you like your Southern fried green tomatoes?

Mary

Yield: about 4 servings

Batter-Dipped Southern Fried Green Tomatoes with Alabama White Sauce

The recipe for Alabama white barbecue sauce is adapted (barely) from My Recipes .

5 minPrep Time:

15 minCook Time:

20 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

For the Fried Green Tomatoes
• canola or vegetable oil
• 2 medium green tomatoes, sliced into ¼-inch slices
• ½ cup flour
• ½ cup yellow or white cornmeal (not self-rising)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼-½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ¼-½ cup cornstarch
For the Alabama White Sauce (makes about 3/4 cup)
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 ½ tablespoons water
• 1 ½ tablespoons white wine vinegar
• ¾ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (the original recipe calls for Creole mustard, which I did not have)
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• 1 small clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

Instructions

1. Make the white sauce: Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for up to a week.
2. Preheat about an inch of the oil over medium heat in a 9 or 10-inch skillet (I like cast iron).
3. Whisk the flour, cornmeal, salt, pepper, and cayenne together in a medium bowl. Add the buttermilk and whisk until smooth.
4. Place the cornstarch in a separate bowl. Working in 2-3 batches, dredge the tomato slices in cornstarch on both sides then dip into the batter. Fry, flipping as needed, until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towels. Serve while hot.

Notes

You may not need all of the cornstarch, so you can start with the smaller amount and add more if you need to. You will not need all of the batter, but I like to have extra to make sure I have plenty for dipping.

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