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Fried Green Tomatoes


1 clove of garlic
1/2 cup fresh basil
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbs. lemon juice
3/4 cup plain, dry breadcrumbs
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. cumin
2 lbs unripe tomatoes, sliced 1/2" thick
3/4 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup canola oil
12 cherry tomatoes

Puree garlic, basil, mayonnaise, and juice until smooth.  Cover; refrigerate.

Combine breadcrumbs, 1 tsp. salt, pepper, and cumin.  Sprinkle tomato slices with remaining salt.  Coat tomatoes with flour, shake off excess.  Dip in egg; coat with breadcrumb mixture.  In nonstick skillet heat oil over medium heat.  Cook tomato slices in batches, turning once, until golden brown, 3 minutes per side.  Drain on paper towels; serve with cherry tomatoes and basil mayonnaise.

For the second week in a row, I picked a recipe involving rhubarb and then had to pick again.  After my last post about trying to find rhubarb my best friend texted me to let me know that even though rhubarb isn't in season in the groceries stores, her mom is currently growing it in her garden.  While it is great to know that I can get rhubarb out of season I can't just go driving up to Johnstown every time I need it.  So I picked another recipe from the shoebox.  


Green tomatoes are a little difficult to find in the grocery store.  My best friend also informed me that her mom has bags and bags of green tomatoes in her garage.  I clearly need to be her next door neighbor.  She has everything I need for any cooking conundrum.  Luckily, while I was at the store, the produce was being restocked so I picked through the crates that hadn't been put on the tomato display stand and found unripe tomatoes.  They weren't very green, but they weren't very red either.  The key to finding tomatoes for frying is that they need to be very firm.  That way they don't fall apart when you slice them.  While I was able to find unripe tomatoes at the store, they were completely out of fresh basil.  So I had to used dried basil for the sauce.  In case you were wondering, you cannot substitute the same amount of dry basil for fresh basil.  Dry herbs are more potent than fresh so use the substitution of 1 teaspoon of dry for 1 tablespoon of fresh.  


Overall, a pretty tasty recipe.  The cumin in the breadcrumb mix added a nice flavor.  However, when I made the sauce I used miracle whip instead of mayonnaise since that is what I had in the refrigerator.  The zip of miracle whip was a little overkill with the garlic.  Too many competing flavors going on.  Next time, I'll use actual mayonnaise.