[Ninny Threadgoode]: Oh, I can't believe you remembered and you made me fried green tomatoes! *laughs*
[Ninny]: They're delicious. [Evelyn Couch]: It's your recipe! Are they cold? [Ninny]: No, they're just the way we used to have them at the Whistlestop Cafe!
[Andrew]: Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to Binging With Babish. For this week, I'm sick.
What're you gonna do? So, I wanted to make something super easy.
And fried green tomatoes from Fried Green Tomatoes, while not cold-curing, seemed like a nice, wholesome, heartwarming option.
So, bathrobe or not, I've got my apron ready to go. Let's get cooking.
First thing we need is a very, very sharp knife.
So, I'm going to sharpen my knife. I'm gonna show you guys how to do this on an episode of Basics in the very near future.
Once we got our knife nice and sharp, it's time to slice up our green tomatoes into about quarter-inch slices.
Like this. We're gonna do four whole green tomatoes, resulting in about 18 tomato slices
that we're gonna place on a paper-towel-lined baking sheet and sparingly sprinkle them with kosher salt.
This is not only going to help season the tomatoes, it's going to make them weep their excess moisture.
While those sit for about half an hour, we're going to make remoulade.
Starting with about three quarters of a cup of mayo, maybe a tbsp of dijon mustard, the juice of one half of one lemon, about a tsp of whole-grain mustard
one or two finely minced cloves of garlic, and maybe one or two finely chopped scallions.
This recipe's pretty eyeball-able, so just taste it, see if you like it.
And also we're going to add about a tablespoon of chopped capers, a few glugs (maybe three to four) of Worcestershire sauce, a few glugs of hot sauce (preferably Louisiana style)
and then a couple of spices. We're gonna add some cayenne pepper, some smoked paprika.
Whisk all that to combine. And boom, we've got remoulade, the sauce in which we will be dipping our fried green tomatoes.
And now, onto the frying of the green tomatoes.
In one of three bowls we're combining a cup of cornmeal with half a cup of bread crumbs.
And then, in another bowl, about a cup and a half of white flour with a few shakes each of onion powder, white pepper and garlic powder.
You could also add some dried herbs, but I'm just gonna add a little bit of kosher salt and whisk it all together with my adorable little whisk.
And then, in the center bowl, our wet ingredients.
Two whole eggs and maybe a half cup of buttermilk. Beat together with a fork, and there you have it, our breading station.
Now, let's see how our tomatoes are doing.
As you can see (or maybe not see), they've wept a great deal of their moisture, which we're gonna blot off with a paper towel.
And now, it's time to bread. We're gonna start with the flour dredge, flipping repeatedly to make sure we get good, even coverage.
Shake off any excess and drop it into the buttermilk-egg mixture.
Pick it up by its sides so you don't scrape off any of the breading, and drop into our cornmeal and bread crumbs.
Press down firmly to make sure the breading fully adheres, and place onto a parchment-lined baking sheet until we're ready to fry.
Rinse and repeat with the rest of your tomatoes. The breading can be very fragile, so be careful to pick up the tomatoes by their sides.
And now, over on the stove, I have a few inches of vegetable oil heated to 325°F.
In cast iron, no less for a little extra Southern cred.
We're gonna drop our breaded tomatoes in there, one batch at a time, making sure they're not overlapping or touching too much.
They'll start at the bottom of the pan, but as they finish cooking, they'll rise to the top.
Go ahead and remove them, and let them drain on paper towels when they are golden brown and crisp.
Repeat with the remaining batch of tomatoes. And now, it's time to plate up with our remoulade.
Look at that, picture perfect. Now, let's see what these things taste like.
Dip it into a little bit of the remoulade, have a bite, and then, remember that your nose is all stuffed up and you can't taste anything.
We're gonna need a proxy taste tester here. What about my dad, ladies and gentlemen?
[Andrew]: Come on over.
[Andrew's dad]: Hey Babish, thanks for having me on your show.
[Andrew]: You're my father. It's really super weird when you call me Babish.
[Andrew]: But okay, go give those a try for me, and let me know how they are.
[Andrew's dad]: Okay, you won't have to ask me twice to try these. Gosh, these are the most delicious fried foods I've ever had.
[Andrew's dad]: I love them.
[Andrew]: Awesome. Would you say that they are "Clean-Plate-Club" worthy?
[Andrew's dad]: Oh yeah.
[Andrew]: And with a little help from my buddy Sawyer, we did just that.
[Andrew's dad]: Hey, look, Sawyer likes them so much (that) he's dancing!
[Andrew]: Yeah, he always does that.