How do you pick tomatoes for a good fried green tomatoe? my restuarant makes them bland?

Question

i ate a fried green tomatoe when i was a child many, many years ago. i never ever forgot the soft tangy inside and the coating on the outside. i wanted to have more but never tried them again. recently i visited a restaurant that had them on the menu. i ordered with glee. when the plate came, it had a pale orange sauce on the bottom with the 5 fried disks on top. i cut into the first one and it was horrible. it tasted like a plain unripe tomatoe. no taste or flavor. only a firm or hard disk with a perfect coating fried onto it. i sent the garbage back. this made me think that there must be an art to picking green tomatoes for frying or is there some art to frying them. how are the good ones tangy or sour and soft but the bad ones just hard tastless slices of nothing. is the secret in the length of time you fry them? what do you typically fry them in (fat or oil). if you know, then tell me. btw. i was in the south with old people and old recipes at the time.

Answer 1

try to find out where the closest tomato farm to you is.  you may be able to make an appointment with the owners to come and pick your very own tomatoes.  or if any of your neighbors have a garden, then there you go!

Answer 2

Absolutely no pink just hard and green, try to find the biggest ones you can. There is a difference in the flour, and the way you  fry them. Mine are crunchy because I use self rising flour NO SALT!! Maybe a little pepper, I added salt one time like I do with squash & eggplant, they were not edible so don't add salt to the S/R flour for green tomatoes. I also tried plian flour, they didn't do as well, not as crisp!   Anyway slice them fairly thin about 1/4 in or less. If you cut them to thick they will take a long time to cook and won't be very crunchy, just mushy. A mandolin works perfect to slice quick and evenly. Dampen them with milk, just damp. not to wet, just so the flour will stick. Roll them in unseasoned self rising flour. The flour has just the perfect amount of salt made in there. Put them on a rack and let them set for a while. It sets the flour. Then you need  quite a bit of oil (I use peanut oil) so they can float. Only cook enough so they have room in the oil to move around. Anyway kinda deep fry them on med, not high. Till they are brown and crisp. Put them on a rack to drain, not on paper towels or they will be soggy. Let your grease get hot again before adding more. It's a little time consuming but worth it!!!

When I say rack I mean something like this:

http://www.cookinglatest.com/wp-content/...

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...

Some use corn meal, but I think I like the flour better!

Answer 3

There are more than 20000 tomatoe sorts. There are white - black - red - yellow and green. Only ripe picked tomatoes have the full flavour. All none ripe tomatoes are green but only the green sorts stay green and have full flavour when they are ripe.

You should look for a green sort "Green Zebra" for excample. If you are a hobby gardener, you can raise them yourself, but today only red sorts are produced comercially, so it is hard to buy them.

Greetings from Hamburg, Germany

Heinz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Zebra

Answer 4

Well right now with all the recalls I suggest waiting, but normally the kind that make the best are homegrown. The ones you buy in the store often have been picked too soon and often have zero flavor. I suggest picking ones that smell fragrant. You may be able to find good ones in a specialty store. I suggest growing your own.

I always cut mine thinner, salt and pepper them and make a delicious cornmeal batter. I also fry them up in bacon grease. They are out of this world. You can also make fried red tomatoes too as long as they aren't mushy. A lot of times if you find the tomatoes that are still on the vine these are best for frying up.

Another thing that is really yummy is to take a grape tomatoe and coat it up and deep fry. You can pop this in one bite and they are so yummy. I like to dip mine in a ranch or dill dressing.