Love the cool days and even cooler nights we’re having. Fall and spring are my favorite seasons. Hard to decide which one takes the top spot. In the spring the earth bursts with new life and that irresistible urge to garden takes over. But the fall offers a respite from those long dog days of summer. The air is drier and cooler. The jeans and long sleeve shirts come out of the closet. But it doesn’t necessarily mean an end to gardening.
Frying is a great way to enjoy those end of season green tomatoes that just won’t ripen.
This year I’ve decided to give some winter vegetables a try in my garden. So it’s time to give up on the last of the tomatoes ever ripening and pull them out to make way for kale, collards, beets, and Brussels sprouts. I probably should have planted them a few weeks ago but I’ve got limited space and I’ve been waiting for those darn tomatoes. So this week I harvested those last few green tomatoes and living in the south there’s just one thing you do with them and it’s such fun – fried green tomatoes!
Cornmeal and rice cracker crumbs make a great coating for gluten-free fried green tomatoes.
They’re traditionally done with cornmeal and a little bit of flour but cornmeal crusts can be a little tough and gritty. It’s become popular to replace some or all of the cornmeal with panko bread crumbs. Here I’ve replaced some of the cornmeal in this coating with rice cracker crumbs (my usual gluten-free stand-in for panko bread crumbs). I really like the texture of the crust that resulted.
You want to use an oil with a high smoke point for the frying. Peanut oil works well. I recently heard about rice bran oil from Teresa Gearing with Gearing Graphics (the talented creator of my logo!). It’s a very heat stable oil also great for deep frying.
A tangy sauce is the perfect accompaniment for fried green tomatoes.
The fried green tomatoes taste great with a remoulade or tartar sauce or even straight mayonnaise. An easy and a little bit kicked-up sauce that I like with them is ½ cup mayonnaise, 2 Tbsp sweet relish, and 1 tsp Sriracha (hot chili) sauce. However you serve them, enjoy the last “fruits” of summer!
- 4 green tomatoes
- ¾ cup white rice flour, divided
- ½ tsp salt
- Ground pepper to taste
- 1 egg plus ¼ c water
- ½ cup gluten-free cornmeal (some brands say they’re processed on equipment that also processes wheat so could be questionable as far as being gluten-free)
- About 20 gluten-free rice crackers
- Peanut or rice bran oil
- Slice tomatoes horizontally into roughly ½ inch slices.
- Place ½ cup rice flour and salt in a shallow bowl.
- In another shallow bowl beat egg and water. Note: I use water because my daughter is dairy sensitive, but you can substitute ½ cup buttermilk if you like.
- Process the crackers in a mini-chopper, blender or food processor until they are fine crumbs. You should get ½ cup crumbs.
- In a third shallow bowl mix ¼ cup rice flour, ½ cup cornmeal, and the ½ cup rice cracker crumbs.
- Heat ¼-1/2 inch of oil in a large skillet to 350 degrees F.
- Coat the tomatoes first in the seasoned rice flour shaking off any excess. Dip next in the egg wash and last coat in the cornmeal/cracker mixture.
- Place them into the heated oil and fry about 1 minute until browned on the bottom. Then flip and fry about a minute more until the other side is browned. Work in batches and avoid overcrowding the pan.
- Drain on a rack and serve with the sauce of your choice.
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