Fried Green Tomatoes with a Cajun Twist
A few weeks ago, David and I had lunch at Chelsea’s, one of my favorite restaurants in Baton Rouge. The atmosphere is very pub-like, but every time I’ve eaten there, the food has been excellent. On this particular Friday afternoon, I ordered the fried green tomatoes with grilled shrimp. The tomatoes were crisp and light and tangy, just like I like them, and they contrasted so nicely with the sweet, meaty shrimp, and creamy remoulade dressing. The dish was so good that I came home and started trying to figure out how to recreate it. Apparently, I got so excited that I forgot to write down what exactly I did! I will try to describe my process, as best I remember…
One of the vendors at the farmer’s market has had green tomatoes the past few weeks; I bought them on Saturday and let them sit in the kitchen window for a few days to soften just a little. A few hours before I planned to start cooking, I sliced the tomatoes, and laid them in a shallow dish of buttermilk. I salted and peppered them well and left them to soak.
When I returned, I mixed up a plate of flour, cornmeal, chopped fresh basil, and seasoning salt (I use equal parts flour and cornmeal). I heated some canola oil in a frying pan, dredged the soaked tomato slices in the flour mixture, and fried them in oil until they turned golden brown, being careful not to let the oil get too hot. They didn’t have to cook very long per side, maybe 3 or 4 minutes? I lay the tomatoes on paper towels to drain while I prepared the remoulade sauce.
Remoulade sauce is another one of those recipes that comes in many varieties. I’ve made it different ways; for this version, I used the leftover cocktail sauce, homemade mayonnaise, a few cloves of garlic, and some spicy cajun mustard, and blended it all up in the food processor. Instead of grilling the shrimp, I used the leftover boiled ones from dinner Monday, so once the sauce was made, my meal was ready to plate. I must confess that my tomatoes and shrimp were not as good as Chelsea’s. I think my sauce was a little too strong–maybe too much garlic–and their tomatoes were more flavorful. Next time, maybe I’ll get it right…and remember to write down my method!
October 19th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
[…] In the first few weeks of pregnancy, I felt hungry all the time. Mostly for salty, crunchy things. I ate olives by the handful and although I am usually not a potato chip girl, if they were near, I could eat a whole bag. One Sunday for lunch, after a heavy rain had knocked some of the not-yet-ripe fall tomatoes from the garden on the ground, we fried them up for what is, in Mississippi anyway, the quintessential southern summer sandwich: a BLT. Instead of ripe red tomatoes, I used the fried green ones, whose tartness works well with the bacon. Instead of lettuce, I added our garden arugula, and I loved the peppery flavor against the salty crunch of the bacon and the spicy coating of the tomatoes. If this were a traditional southern BLT, it would have to have homemade mayonnaise on it, but since I’m avoiding raw eggs, that wasn’t an option (and storebought mayonnaise is never, ever an option). Good, crusty bread is also a must: I used ciabatta for this one; sourdough also works. I’m sorry I don’t have a real southern “recipe” to offer, but if you dig around in the archives, you’re likely to find many a southern dish: the South has, in many ways, defined the kind of cook I am. I’ve fried green tomatoes here before, so in case you want to make BLT’s with stray fall tomatoes, here’s how to do it. […]