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Fried Tomatoes
Slice, without peeling, ripe, firm tomatoes, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and dredge lightly on both sides with flour. Saute them in hot butter until nicely browned. Or they may be rolled in fine cracker crumbs and sauteed. Serve on a hot platter.
These are good to serve for breakfast or lunch with potato or rice croquettes, or with ham or cheese omelet.
A straightforward saute that depends almost entirely on the tomatoes themselves. The instruction that matters is "firm": a soft, fully ripe tomato collapses in the pan and the flour turns to paste.
- Slice thicknessAim for about 1/2 inch. Thinner slices lose structure before they brown; much thicker and the centre stays raw-tasting while the coating darkens.
- Drain before dredgingSalt the cut slices and let them sit on a rack or paper for 10-15 minutes, then blot. The original salts and flours in one motion, which traps surface juice under the flour and steams the coating instead of crisping it.
- Butter alone scorches"Hot butter" over the time needed to brown two batches will darken past the point you want. Clarified butter, or butter cut with a neutral oil, holds up better; keep the pan at a steady medium-high.
- Cracker crumbsThe alternative coating would most likely have meant plain soda crackers. If your crackers are heavily salted, ease off the seasoning if you take that route. Panko is not the same thing but works if you want more crunch.
- Don't crowd the panSlices need space or they release liquid and poach. Two batches in a 10-inch skillet is realistic for a large tomato.
- YieldTwo large tomatoes give about four servings as a side. Serve at once - they soften within a few minutes of leaving the pan, which is why the original insists on a hot platter.
- Green tomatoesThis is not the fried green tomato dish now widely associated with Southern cooking, which uses unripe fruit and often cornmeal. Here the sweetness of ripe fruit is the point.
Fried tomatoes appear regularly in American cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the morning meal was often substantial and could include a cooked vegetable alongside eggs, ham or croquettes. The pairing suggestions here - potato or rice croquettes, a ham or cheese omelet - fit that pattern, and croquettes of this kind were commonly a way of using up cooked potato or rice. Tomatoes were by this date grown in quantity in kitchen gardens, which meant a glut every late summer and a need for quick ways to cook them beyond stewing and canning. Leaving the skin on, as this recipe does, is practical rather than rustic: it helps hold the slice together in the pan.