Sunday, November 09, 2008

Fried Green Tomato Sandwich

The kids were out, so Mark put some cheese and bread on a cutting board, reheated three pitiful fried green tomatoes he'd saved from the other night, and brought this strange melange to the table for our dinner. 

What happened next wasn't quite a Ruth Wakefield-invents-the-chocolate-chip-cookie moment, but close. I put a warmed-over fried green tomato on a piece of baguette spread with goat cheese. Took a bite. Wanted to call Mario Batali and tell him to get Tipsy Baker bruschette on the menu at Babbo, stat.

Today at lunch I fried some more green tomatoes and repeated the experiment. This time I made a true sandwich and added some apple chutney for "zing." 

It was indeed  "zingy," and molto delicious.

If you can call this a recipe, here it is: 

1. Take green tomatoes that have been fried using any formula that results in a crispy, salty-peppery cornmeal crust enrobing a tart, juicy tomato. If they're cold, reheat them. 

2. Split a baguette and toast.

3. Spread baguette with soft goat cheese.

4. Spread a super-thin layer of chutney (I used homemade apple chutney, but storebought mango or any other kind would work) on the goat cheese. You don't want a dominant chutney thing going on here, just a hint of fruit and spice. Ignore the picture above; I put on too much.

5. Top with green tomatoes.

6. Top with lid of bread.

It's not worth frying green tomatoes just to make this sandwich, but if you have fried green tomatoes leftover, it's worth saving them.  


3 comments:

  1. So, maybe I am a Philistine, but my fried green tomatoes have a cracker coating. I wish I had a time machine to go back and get some green tomatoes to make this sandwich. How sweet is apple chutney? I have some quince jam that I wonder if I could substitute. It's quite intensely sweet, though.

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  2. I'm sure crackers are great, probably better. Ditto quince jam. How do these sternly authoritative cookbook writers take themselves seriously?

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