American-Style Fried Green Tomatoes – Self Sufficient Me

Boldly tangy, with home-made ranch dip & fried in bacon fat, American-style fried green tomatoes are a crunchy savoury with a true wow factor!

Long-perceived as a staple of the American south, fried green tomatoes are in fact from north-east USA but popularised by their namesake 1991 movie. What’s more, the dish is thought to have materialised via some combination of Jewish immigrants, thriftiness, and the frost-driven short north-east USA growing season.

I’ve always thought American-style fried green tomatoes are the perfect tomato recipe for QLD backyard tomato growers. The slow rate of ripening during winter and the propensity for pest damage during summer means that harvesting green tomatoes is an attractive prospect. Now I know there’s a great recipe for them, I’ll be making these every winter.

Making American-style fried green tomatoes is essentially crumbing and frying, but taken up a notch. What makes this dish so much more-and surprising– is the combination of ingredients and the home-made dipping sauce. Using bacon fat with the oil gives the flavour a whole new level of depth, and the freshly-made cornmeal creates an outstanding crunch. Top them off with a delicious home-made ranch dip, and you’ve got a delightful & delicious treat!

Does This Recipe Really Use Unripe Tomatoes?

In a word, yes. Green tomatoes are simply tomatoes that haven’t ripened yet. They have a much firmer flesh than ripe tomatoes, plus a surprisingly mild flavour. Green tomatoes are surprisingly suitable for frying and sauteeing, because their low water content results in a crisp, dry product.

If you’re picking green tomatoes from your own vegetable garden, make sure they’re close to ripening. They should be at full size and pale green, rather than small and dark green. They do contain more acid than ripe tomatoes, but this dissipates with cooking. And yes, unripe green tomatoes are perfectly safe to eat as a snack!

Here’s How to Make It

Start by harvesting or buying your green tomatoes. Next, fry up some bacon to yield the fat for frying the tomatoes. If you prefer, you can omit this step and simply use oil to fry the tomatoes.

As true cornmeal is very hard to obtain in Australia, I decided to make my own. It’s an easy job with a spice grinder, as all you need to do is grind up some popping corn.

Next, prepare your dipping mixtures. Blend the egg and buttermilk together in a bowl. Mix the breadcrumbs, cornmeal and salt together in one bowl, then place the flour in another bowl. Slice the tomatoes about 1 cm (1/4?) thick.

Coat each tomato slice in flour, then in the egg mixture. Don’t worry if the flour is a bit lumpy, as above. A few odd little lumps make for an excellent batter.

Heat the oil & bacon fat to a medium heat. Meanwhile, crumb the tomato slices in the cornmeal mixture. Once the oil is up to temp, gently fry the tomato slices until lightly golden.

I gave the tomatoes about 5 minutes on each side, turning them once or twice. While the tomatoes are cooking, make the dressing by whisking all ingredients together in a bowl. Once the tomatoes are cooked, remove them carefully to a cooling rack with paper towel underneath so they can drain.