Has anyone here tasted the pure ecstasy of fried green tomato BLTs before? I can't believe I haven't shared this before, but they are super easy to make (comparatively) and one of the best sandwiches you can possibly make. Warning for those who know how to fry things, I do go into unnecessary detail for those who don't know how to fry things.
Ingredients:
fried green tomato*
bacon (just before it's fully crispy)
sourdough bread (lightly toasted, make it crispy but soft)
lettuce
mayonnaise based spread (basil mayonnaise (take basil, put it in mayo, let sit for a while) works wonderfully)
*How to fry green tomatoes nicely.
ingredients:
oil
1/4th in. green tomato slices, sliced horizontally
salt
flour
1 cup buttermilk or milk (buttermilk's better)
1 egg
spices**
Heat oil. Use a wide, deep sided frying pan for this, heavy cast iron is best. By wide I mean about a half meter in diameter. A little less. About a foot and a quarter is mine. I can't imagine going smaller, and any larger won't fit my stove. Deep means about an inch. Use canola oil, and then add in some other oils to change the flavor/color of the finished product. Peanut is strong, as is sesame, and both will darken the stuff. Olive won't do much for color, but it does change the flavor a little. I use the bacon stuff left over from frying that, and then top it off with canola (makes it about 4:1 canola:bacon). You need a good quarter inch depth with the oil for the best frying. Just enough to barely not come over the slices, so they will get splashed on top.
Assemble four surfaces for the breading: 1 flat surface for pre-breading tomatoes, 1 edged surface for first dry, 1 bowl for wet, and one more edged for second dry.
Wet: Beat the egg into the buttermilk, put into shallow wide pan. Amount of liquid not important, just need enough to cover the tomato slices completely. Use more buttermilk if you don't have enough liquid.
1st dry: flour. Just plain flour. Have enough to coat all of the tomatoes lightly. It'll take about a 1/4 cup for a full tomato, but you need extra or they won't coat evenly.
2nd dry: Flour, same amount as before, but add spices**. To add, just sift them together.
Tomato process: Salt the slices lightly (don't overdo it, even though tomatoes need a lot of salt), then coat in 1st dry. Dip in wet, until coated. Finish with 2nd dry. Go straight to the pan. Fry on first side until just under what you want, then flip them over. Careful, cause it's hot oil and tomatoes are mostly water. They will be done when both sides are a nice light brown (depending on the oil) and the tomato slice is very rigid. Let sit for about a minute on a paper towel before putting on sandwich, to drain excess oil. I suggest having the rest of the sandwich ready to go before you fry.
**Spices: salt, pepper, and anything aromatic you want. It really doesn't need anything specific, but I find that smoked paprika is the only thing we need. Don't overpower it, the sandwich has enough flavor as is. The paprika adds another dimension and colors the flour so they turn a darker brown with a hint of red.
