I don’t know about you but I hate to waste food. So when there are green tomatoes on the vine at the end of summer it’s a great opportunity to make fried green tomatoes. But what do you do when most of the recipes include bread crumbs and/or cornmeal—and you’re allergic to wheat and corn like Bill is?
When I tried making them, I improvised the best I could! Here’s how:
Set-up is key, just like when you make stir-fry. You need to have everything prepared ahead of time because the process of dredging, dipping, and frying goes quickly.
First, slice the tomatoes about 1/4-inch thick.
Then put some buttermilk in a bowl. I used leftover buttermilk from my raw milk butter process because Bill can consume raw cow dairy products (as opposed to pasteurized). If you have a dairy allergy you could try rice milk instead.
Mix together oat flour with some paprika, salt, and pepper and put it on a plate for dredging the tomatoes. (In retrospect, I would probably use brown rice flour since it retains less moisture.)
Beat an egg in a bowl.
For the bread crumbs, use old bread, or create old bread by leaving a few slices out the night before. We use Sami’s Millet & Flax Bread because it doesn’t have wheat or corn in it. (If you don’t have a wheat allergy you could use any kind of plain bread crumbs.) Simply smash the dried bread with your hands or a rolling pin to crumble the bread into small pieces.
Once everything is ready, heat some vegetable oil in a large skillet. I used safflower oil and was very liberal with it so the tomatoes wouldn’t stick.
Then it’s just dip, dredge, dip, dredge—from buttermilk to flour to egg to bread crumbs. And into the pan they go.
Fry on each side for about two minutes or until brown and crispy. If you need to fry in batches, keep the cooked ones warm on a plate in a low oven.
We enjoyed ours with a variation on Bill-Friendly Mac & Cheese on a cool autumn night!
