>> Hilah: Hey dudes!
I am Hilah and welcome to Hilah Cooking.
We’ve got a special, exciting field trip today.
We’re going to go out to Johnson’s Backyard Garden which is a big organic farm here, and
I heard that they have some green tomatoes and I’ve gotten lots of requests for fried
green tomatoes, so we’re gonna go out there, steal some tomatoes, come back here, make
the awesome fried green tomatoes you ever put in your face.
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[How To Make Fried Green Tomatoes]
>> Hilah: Hey Brent!
>> Brent: Hey!
How’s it going?
>> Hilah: Good.
How are you?
>> Brent: Doing good.
>> Hilah: Good, so are you gonna show us some tomatoes?
You’ve got a bunch of tomatoes I hear.
>> Brent: A couple.
>> Hilah: Yeah [laughs].
How many plants do you got this year?
>> Brent: 30,000
>> Hilah: Wow!
How many varieties?
>> Brent: We are growing about 60 different varieties this year.
>> Hilah: Okay, well I am gonna steal some of the green ones okay?
>> Brent: Sounds good.
>> Hilah: All right.
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>> Hilah: So why did you get into farming?
>> Brent: I got into farming because I wanted to do something that I believed in and I thought
that was important.
And I was majoring in mechanical engineering and ended up, you know, going and talking
to my professor.
And telling him, you know, that I, that I was having trouble you know, kind of thinking
about working in some factory when I grew up.
I think he thought that I, I broke on through to the other side.
I had a thick beard and long hair, and was following The Grateful Dead around too much.
And he was like, “Boy, I think you need to go talk to the agricultural engineering
department.”
He says, “You’re about to graduate as an engineer.
So I changed my major and it’s the best decision that I ever made.
Farming is an extremely risky business, and I guess one of the strategies that we’ve
taken as far as trying to you know, manage that risk.
And stay in business as a vegetable farmer is diversification, so we sell to restaurants
in Austin.
Lots of different grocery stores.
We also have a really active community supported agriculture component to our farm.
And then we also sell at the farmer’s markets all over town.
And so I think just having all this different outlets of community support is a real important
part, you know, to our farm.
One of the things that we’re working on now is we are looking at kind of Austin as
a pie instead of being you know, just half the pie.
I didn't get started at farming in Austin just to feed the yuppies.
>> Hilah: Right.
[laughs]
>> Brent: And so we are actually starting a non-profit right now called farm share.
And so the whole purpose of the non-profit is to feed the other half of the pie.
So working in cooperation with groups like Capillary Food Bank, or Eritas, Salvation
Army, The Settlement Home.
So existing non-profits that have a, that have a community that it can feed, have a
distribution network . That we can partner with where local farms
in Austin can grow food, and provide it to people that can’t afford it.
Our farm now has grown from the 30’ x 50’ backyard garden to now we are growing about
65 acres of vegetables.
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>> Hilah: Well thanks for talking to us.
>> Brent: Yeah, cool.
>> Hilah: Good to see you.
[laughs]
[MUSIC]
>> Hilah: Okay, we’re back that was a lot of fun even though we got wet, but that’s
okay because we just washed away our sins, and now we’re ready to make some fried green
tomatoes.
If you’ve never had fried green tomatoes, they’re kind of tart, and fried, and then
you season them with salt.
If you like fried pickles, you’ll probably like these.
You don’t want to cut ‘em too thick because they’re really, really crisp, so I am thinking
like a quarter inch to a third of an inch.
I don’t know how many millimeters that is, but they need to be able to cook through while
you are frying them without getting the breading too brown, and then here’s a little trick
if you wanna, don’t wanna waste this little stem, and you can use just a little melon
baller and kind of scoop that out, and then you can still fry that piece, so cool.
All right, now what I like to do before I bread them is just sprinkle the tomatoes really
lightly with a little bit of celery salt.
You could just use regular salt or garlic salt or onion salt, and anything like that
would be good.
Just to add a little bit more flavor to the mix, and then I’ve got some cornmeal flour
here that’s just seasoned with, you know, salt and pepper, cayenne pepper, and you could
leave the cayenne pepper out if you are serving babies or wimps, and then just a single egg
here, and then we just dip, baby dip, so dry stuff.
[pause] And wet stuff, [laughs] just kidding, and then vacuum to the dryer.
Cool!
And then you’re just going to set that down while we do the rest of them.
I’ve got a little bit of vegetable oil on here right now, and I am gonna add a scoop
of bacon fat, so if you’re not a hillbilly like me who keeps a jar of bacon fat around,
then you could just use oil.
So when you drop in a little bit of your breading mixture and it starts to frizzle and fry like
Primus or like this little thing, then you’re ready to go, and I only have like a millimeter
of oil in here.
We’re not like deep frying these or anything.
I just wanna go ahead and put my fatty boy in here first.
See if I can squeeze this little mofo in here.
Cool!
All right, now that they’re all in I am gonna turn my heat down to like medium, and
let them go for three or four minutes and then we’ll flip ‘em.
Look at that gorgeous business happening there.
They are releasing their succulent juices for my mouth, perfect, oh my gosh!
Okay, so another three or four minutes just until the other side is just as delectably
golden brown.
Look at that.
Just like mom used to make.
Obviously I am going to have to eat a flaming hot one for you people or I’ll never hear
the end of it.
Just kidding.
I love you guys.
All right.
While they are hot you want to make sure to sprinkle them with just a little bit of salt,
you know, like anything that you fry.
It’s always better if it’s salty, and some people like to serve these with ranch
or tobacco or lemon juice.
I like just plain like this.
I bet some sweet chili sauce would be super-awesome if you want to do some like Tex-Asian fusion
sheeeeeet .[laughs] All right.
So, these are really hot still.
I am just gonna cut it open and kind of cut me a little bite.
Oh look, see that’s perfect.
See the tomato is just like a little bit soft.
The crust is really nice and it’s sticking to the tomato really well.
[pause] MMmmmmmmm.
Mmmmmmmmm!
Mmmmm.
Laws that’s good.
Totally reminds me of what mom used to make, and the celery salt, if you want to do that,
I think it’s a great little flavor combination.
It adds a lot there, so there’s how to make fried green tomatoes.
Thanks everyone for suggesting that.
I never honestly would have thought that anyone would be interested in that, but I do love
them, and I grew up eating them, so I am really glad that other people appreciate them as
well.
I hope you try the recipe.
If you have any questions or anything, leave them in the comments below.
I’ll get to them as soon as I can.
Thanks so much for watching, and thanks to Johnson’s Backyard Garden.
If you live in Austin , go get a CSA box for them or something.
Okay.
Bye!
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