Goin' Southern

I have never had green tomatoes or fried green tomatoes and I have never been to the south. Apparently I have been missing out on a lot. I have also been informed that I have missed a great book and movie by not watching "Fried Green Tomatoes". I was excited to try this recipe.  1st of all,  I had to go to many stores to find "green" tomatoes.  I finally found them at Whole Foods!  By the way, if and when I when the lottery I will be doing all my shopping at this store.  I LOVE IT THERE!  I could spend hours in there just walking the rows of amazing and weird food.  These tomatoes were so pretty.

I thinly sliced them and laid them on the paper towel to dry.  It is always easier to get breading to stick better when the item in question is not wet.  Here are pretty slices. 

Here is my breading station.  On the left is flour and cornstarch with salt and pepper, the middle is eggs and the right is Ritz cracker crumbs.  (Nothing is bad if it has ritz in it right?) 

I got my cast iron skillet (my favorite pan) and heated the oil (I think I used peanut oil) to 350 degrees.  Ok so I don't have a thermometer and apparently I need to get one but I feel like the more I fry, the better I am getting at telling when the oil is hot enough.  I also use a drop of water and put it into the skillet.  If it pops, in my opinion it is ready.  Wonder the science behind that? I took each slice of tomato, put it into the flour, then the egg and then the ritz crumbs making sure to pat it down after every station in order to make the stuff stick. 

Immediately after the frying I placed them on the drying rack in order to let the excess oil drip off. 

OH MY GOSH!!!!  These are amazing.  After the oil I salted them.  They were crispy and the breading stayed on.  I ate able 20 of them.  Seriously!  It was even better when dipped in a little bit of ranch.  I served it with some chicken and apple sausage.  It was a little too much grease for this meal but lets be honest.  We are frying here right?  I had major heart burn after this one but would definitely make this again.  So should I read the book first or watch the movie?  Apparently I missed out on American culture.  Next up we are headed to Italy.