Green tomatoes - for you dear sister

"Watching a crunchy, sour green tomato magically morph into something warm and delicious makes me happy that something unripe hasn't gone to waste and has found new life in my kitchen."

Christine Gallary - Kitchn

My sister wrote the other day that the remaining tomatoes on her plants were not ripening and she didn't know what to do with them. Well she is in England and autumn is drawing in. So - just for the gardening and ripening side of things I recommend you read this article from The Guardian by Jane Perrone. There were lots of suggestions to help with ripening them. I remember in my childhood that we used to wrap them in tissue paper and put them in boxes or was it on the window sill?. And it seems that this is, sort of, actually what you do - well one thing you can do.

But me, I'm more into the food side of things. I used to grow my own tomatoes. I never got high yields but with lots of plants I still had plenty of fruit. These days I just don't seem to be able to get them to grow and produce fruit - and what did grow got eaten by something. So I've given up. After all when mine are ripening you can get lovely tomatoes in the market for very little money. Green tomatoes though are rather more difficult to obtain. Well these days you can get those Green Zebra ones - but they are green when they're ripe, so not at all the same thing. The subject of this blog is unripe green tomatoes, that should be ripe and red. As Nigel Slater says:

"Those tomatoes whose prospects were good, but failed due to the sudden turn of our exceptionally long summer into a generous but nippy autumn. Look properly at them and you will see fruit that is perfect in every way except that its sweetness has yet to develop. Basically, they are edible but need a helping hand from the cook. Some heat, a little sugar, a modicum of spices maybe. Whatever they need, we can save those last fruits from a fate worst than compost."

So first of all what does he do with them?

Well I'll give him the honour of providing the fried green tomatoes recipe - it's a classic American dish made famous by that film. And I am not at all sure why other countries don't have a similar thing. Maybe other countries don't suffer with green tomatoes. Maybe they just don't care about waste. Who knows. Anyway it's a quintessentially American dish and here is British Nigel Slater's version.

NIGEL SLATER'S FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

"I will tug the unblessed ones from their vines and cook them in a thin crust of beaten egg and polenta (flour, beaten egg, fine crumbs, hot oil). The dry, yellow grain forms a crisp coating while the tomato softens. It won't colour or turn a delicious rose pink, even, but will have a sprightly note and a slight crispness to it. A pleasant change from a quiveringly ripe fruit. With a dollop of rasping garlic mayo, there are few better ways to say goodbye to another year's plants."

I should give you an American version though, so here is Bert Greene's - well a summary of it. For 3 tomatoes - in a bowl beat together 1 egg, 2 teaspoons cream, 1/4 cup V-8 juice or Bloody Mary mix, dash of hot pepper sauce. In another bowl mix together 1/cup fresh bread crumbs and 1/8 tsp ground allspice. Dip the tomato slices in the egg mixture then the crumbs and fry in butter. Sprinkle with chives to serve.

And then when you have made these beautiful things you can do this with them - it's very posh looking and is called Oven Fried Green Tomato Caprese and comes from a website called Diane, A Broad. The tomatoes are oven fried too, so probably somewhat healthier.

The other thing that people seem to do with green tomatoes (including Nigel Slater) is to make chutney. And I know dear sister you don't want to do this. But I will include it anyway. Nigel Slater seems to think that when it comes to chutney it's best to include some ripe red tomatoes too.

"The unripe fruits need longer cooking to develop their sugars, but they seem to do better with a little sweet fruit in their midst. You get a playful tangle of textures and colours and every now and again a hit of crispness."

The recipe and a few others too can be found here. But if you go to the net or your cook books you will find dozens of alternative recipes - for relishes and pickles too.

So what else can you do? Well sticking with Nigel Slater - he has a recipe for Baked Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives which was a bit intriguing because it seemed to heighten the acidity with lemon juice too - but as in his chutney he cheats a bit by having ripe tomatoes as well.

"At this point in the year I tuck them around pieces of chicken, zinged up with a few olives and a squeeze of lemon, and let them bake till their juices run sharp and sweet." Nigel Slater

There are lots and lots of recipes on the net including recipes for cakes and breads. But I will finish with two from the Australians - Beverley Sutherland Smith and Stephanie Alexander. Both are for a green tomato pie, which they seem to think is for dessert. No pictures I'm afraid.

GREEN TOMATO PIE WITH A POLENTA CRUST (Stephanie Alexander)

700g green tomatoes, thickly sliced, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground allspice, 1 tbsp freshly chopped basil leaves, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 40g unsalted butter

polenta crust - 1/4 cup fine polenta, 115g plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt,

1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 75g butter, 1/2 cup cream

To make the polenta crust, mix polenta, flour, salt and baking powder in a food processor for 10 seconds. Add butter and process until butter pieces are the size of a pea. Add cream and mix until dough comes together. Divide dough in half, then wrap each piece in plastic film and flatten, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Put tomato slices on a tray lined with a clean tea towel and set aside to drain for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200ºC. Roll out half the pastry and line a 24cm pie plate or loose-bottomed flan tin with it. Combine sugar, spices, basil and vinegar, arrange a layer of tomato on pastry base, then sprinkle with half the sugar mixture. Cover with remaining tomato and sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture. Dot with butter. Roll out remaining pastry and settle on top of filling. Pinch edges together very well. Cut a small hole in the centre on top to allow steam to escape. Bake for 20 minutes, then lower temperature to 180ºC and bake for a further 20 minutes. Cover pastry with foil if top is browning too much. Allow to cool a little before cutting. Serve with mascarpone or sour cream.

GREEN TOMATO PIE (Beverley Sutherland Smith)

pie crust - 2 cups plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbsp sugar, 200g butter, cut into small pieces, 1/3-1/2 cup iced water

tomato filling - 6 medium=sized green tomatoes, grated rind of 1 large lemon, 1/3 cup lemon juice, 1/2 cup sultanas, 1/3 cup plain flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 30 g butter, cut into small pieces

For crust, put flour, salt and sugar in a basin or food processor. Add the butter and mix until it is in crumbs. Add iced water and mix to a dough. Wrap in plastic and rest for 30 minutes or so while you prepare the tomato. Chill if the kitchen is warm.

Lightly grease the pie dish and preheat oven to 200ºC.

Cut both ends from the tomatoes and discard these pieces, then slice the rest of the tomato very thinly. Put tomato slices into a bowl with the lemon rind, juice and sultanas. Stir to coat them well. Mix flour, sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of plastic wrap or waxed greaseproof paper. Put it into the pie dish, letting pastry overlap the edge. Put about a third of the flour mixture on the base. Add half the tomatoes and press down gently so that the layer is even. Add more of the flour mixture, the rest of the tomatoes, then the rest of the flour mixture. Dot with butter, Fold the pastry over the top of the tomato it will have some folds on the curves. The edges won't meet in the centre so some tomato will show through. It is meant to look very rustic so don't fuss if it is uneven. Place in hot oven for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 170ºC for a further 45-50 minutes, or until the pastry is brown and the tomato is soft when you pierce he centre with a skewer. By this time the syrup should be ample and there will be a bit of deep brown caramel edge on the crust. Leave for 10-15 minutes at lest before cutting, as pie will be bubbling and very juicy when it first comes from the oven. As it rests, the juices thicken into a glazed sauce.

I like to serve it with some clotted cream if I can get it, or else some thick pure cream spooned over each portion.

She also has a recipe for a green tomato soup, but I'm afraid I've run out of energy for now!

We, of course, have no green tomatoes here at the moment. Just tomatoes from the greenhouses and some from Queensland and other similarly warm areas.