Throughout excessive summer season I really like utilizing juicy, completely ripe pink tomatoes uncooked in salads, caprese, tomato and mayo sandwiches, and—my summertime important—gazpacho. However equally satisfying in its personal means is the problem of extending tomato season on the back and front finish through the use of unripened inexperienced tomatoes in that Southern basic fried inexperienced tomatoes.

I grew up in North Carolina, the place crispy cornmeal-battered fried inexperienced tomatoes are a star of the spring and fall tomato shoulder season, however I did not absolutely recognize this good use for under-ripe tomatoes till about 10 years in the past once I had a rooftop vegetable backyard in Brooklyn and was confronted with a late-fall harvest that was simply by no means going to ripen on the vine.

As an alternative of composting the inexperienced tomatoes, I battered them in cornmeal and fried them in a forged iron skillet till they have been golden and crispy and excellent for consuming as-is, dipping in rémoulade, and tucking into sandwiches with pimento cheese (impressed by a soften at Elsie’s Plate and Pie in Baton Rouge). Fried inexperienced tomatoes actually are among the finest methods to show trash (or compost) into treasure.

It has been a number of years since I’ve had a rooftop tomato backyard so fried inexperienced tomatoes had sadly fallen off my culinary radar till not too long ago. Now they’ve blasted again to the highest of my summer season and shoulder season must-eat checklist, due to the recipe we’re sharing right here for cornmeal-battered fried inexperienced tomatoes, which was developed by our Alabama-based check kitchen colleague Jasmine Smith. Jasmine examined spherical after spherical of tomatoes to develop completely crispy, golden brown fried inexperienced tomatoes. And once I say crispy, I imply it: I attempted these tomatoes recent out of the fryer after which once more after they’d been sitting for a few hours they usually have been miraculously nonetheless crunchy. What sorcery is that this? (Truly it is science.)

Learn on for Jasmine’s full recipe for the tomatoes and a tangy and creamy rémoulade sauce for dipping, plus serving concepts. 

7 Ideas for Fried Inexperienced Tomatoes That Are Completely Crispy and Scrumptious

To create this recipe, Jasmine experimented with totally different combos of breadcrumbs and cornmeal for the coating, salted vs. unsalted tomatoes, tomatoes that have been soaked in buttermilk vs. unsoaked tomatoes, and numerous thicknesses of tomato slices. Her ensuing recipe displays the findings from her testing described right here. 

Select the suitable tomatoes. The tomatoes you need for fried inexperienced tomatoes are unripe tomatoes—that’s the type that might flip pink given the time on the vine within the solar and heat. Don’t use the type of tomatoes that stay inexperienced after they’re ripe, resembling inexperienced zebras. These might be too smooth to batter and fry correctly. Additionally keep away from underripe grocery store tomatoes, which, whereas not in any means ultimate as a peak-season summer season tomato, are nonetheless too ripe to work as a fried inexperienced tomato.

Slice the tomatoes to the suitable thickness. Jasmine discovered that tomatoes which are reduce no thicker than 1/4 inch are finest, for the reason that batter cracked and fell off tomatoes which are sliced wider than that.

Do not salt the tomatoes. Salting tomatoes may help draw out extra liquid, however Jasmine discovered that when the tomato slices are 1/4 inch or thinner, they did not profit from a pre-salting: The well-seasoned coating is greater than sufficient for the thinner slices of tomato inside and the thinner slices aren’t holding sufficient water to danger sogging out the crust after frying. (It is price noting she did discover pre-salting useful for thicker slices of tomatoes, each for seasoning and a liquid purge, however these thicker tomatoes suffered rather more from the coating crumbling off.)

Dredge with flour and an egg-buttermilk combination. Jasmine experimented with a wide range of dredging strategies, together with with and with no mild coating of all-purpose flour, and with a dunk in an egg wash, a buttermilk tub, and a mix of each. She discovered that the very best consequence got here from the flour dredge mixed with a subsequent dunk in a buttermilk-egg combination, which creates a crust that is much less prone to crumble than one constructed on buttermilk alone, however extra flavorful than one which solely makes use of egg, due to the gentle lactic tang of the buttermilk.

Use an equal-parts combo of cornmeal and breadcrumbs. Cornmeal is conventional (and scrumptious) within the coating for fried inexperienced tomatoes, however chopping it with an equal quantity of ordinary breadcrumbs leads to the crispiest, most evenly browned fried inexperienced tomatoes. The breadcrumbs improve the crisp texture and evenly browned shade of the fried tomatoes with out creating an excessively robust shell.

Observe that panko isn’t a superb choice right here: Jasmine examined the combination with panko rather than the usual breadcrumbs, however their bigger crumb measurement did not brown as evenly relative to the opposite coating parts.

Press the coating onto the tomatoes. Be sure you press the tomatoes into the flour-cornmeal combination so it adheres properly. It is a small element that pays dividends by serving to the coating keep affixed while you put the tomatoes within the fryer.

Add taste all through. Inexperienced tomatoes are fairly gentle on their very own, so this recipe incorporates taste boosters resembling buttermilk within the batter and Creole seasoning in each the rémoulade and the cornmeal combination. True Southern taste means loads of taste, so do not skimp on the seasonings.  

7 Concepts for Serving Fried Inexperienced Tomatoes

• Dipped in rémoulade, ranch dressing, or one other creamy sauce.
• Instead of common tomatoes in a BLT or tomato and mayo sandwich.
• Slathered with pimento cheese.
• Topped with fried eggs for breakfast or brunch. 
• As a aspect with barbecued hen.
• On a veggie plate with black-eyed peas and succotash. 
• With burrata and recent basil.