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Green Tomatoes and Onions
Slice an equal quantity of green tomatoes and onions into a frying pan. Cover and cook until onions are tender. Uncover, add butter and brown.
— Mrs. Leonard Warren
A three-sentence receipt that leaves out quantities, heat and seasoning. The technique is sound: steam the vegetables in their own moisture under a lid, then uncover and let them brown in butter.
- Green tomatoesUnripe, firm, still-pale tomatoes, not tomatillos or green-when-ripe varieties like Green Zebra. They hold their shape through long cooking and stay tart.
- Slice thicknessAbout a quarter inch for both tomatoes and onions so they finish together. Thicker onion rounds will still be crunchy when the tomatoes have collapsed.
- Getting the steam goingThe pan is dry at the start, so use medium-low heat and let the tomatoes release their liquid before it can scorch. If the pan runs dry before the onions soften, add a spoonful of water rather than raising the heat.
- Where the butter goesButter is added only after the lid comes off, at the browning stage; during the covered stage the pan is wet and nothing would brown in it anyway. Two to three tablespoons for a pan holding a pound of each vegetable.
- TimingRoughly 15 to 20 minutes covered for the onions to turn tender, then 5 to 10 minutes uncovered over higher heat to drive off moisture and get color.
- SeasoningNone is specified. Salt the vegetables when they go in to help draw out liquid; black pepper and a pinch of sugar at the end balance the tomatoes' sharpness.
- YieldA pound each of tomatoes and onions cooks down considerably and serves four as a side dish.
Green tomatoes were less a delicacy than a fact of northern gardening: the first hard frost arrives while the vines are still loaded with unripe fruit, and cooks developed a whole repertoire — fried slices, pickles, mincemeat, chutney — to use what would never redden. Cooking them down with onions is the plainest of these uses and turns up in various forms in American regional collections. Receipts contributed under a contributor's name, as this one is, tend to be telegraphic: Mrs. Warren was writing for neighbors who already knew how much a skillet held.