Fried Green Tomatoes in Oregon
I’m a Yankee. Not from New York, but I’ve lived there.
No, I am a Michigander through and through. Except, I’ve not lived in the mitten for more years than I did, that does not mitigate my love for the Wolverine State.
Most of those years not in Michigan were spent in various places in Florida, but the lions share of that time was in Tallahassee. I’m even a Seminole due to graduation status from Florida State University.
Time in the southern part of the Unites States changes a person. Notable for me was in food.
I had been served fried green tomatoes as a kid and they were okay. That milquetoast support tends more toward my youth than the skill of the cook.
I’ve since come to love them and all the many ways they can be made. Some are battered and some breaded. Some three-step breaded and some only soaked in buttermilk and then pressed into crumbs. How many ways are there to make fried green tomatoes? How many southern grandmas are there who make them?
Sauce
Sauce makes the difference even when the tomatoes are perfect and plump and crispy.
Some fancy a salsa made with the wee bits of green tomato not cut for frying. Some red tomato salsa, sorta a full circle thing.
But remoulade sauce, well, now that’s eating. There are a handful of foods any Southerner is proud to eat: bacon and mayonnaise are two.
Remoulade is a mayo based sauce perfect for fried lake perch or pretty much anything you put it on.
Here’s my version.
Remoulade Sauce
Tartar sauce's fancy French (by way of N'Awlins) cousin. Just like anything southern, there is more than one way to make it. Just, make it.
Ingredients
Remoulade Sauce
- 1.5 oz Shallots, minced
- 3 T Fresh chopped chives
- 3 T Fresh chopped tarragon
- 2 oz Rinsed minced capers Salt packed if you can find them
- 2 oz Cornichons, minced
- 1 qt Mayonnaise
- 1 each Anchovy filet, smashed to a paste 1/2 oz
- 1 T Dijon mustard
- to taste Salt
- to taste Black pepper
- to taste Tabasco sauce
Instructions
Mix the sauce
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Mix all ingredients into a bowl.
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Check seasoning. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.
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Put it on everything.
Recipe Notes
Avoid anchovy paste. It has far too much salt. I find it more yuck than yum.
If you buy salt packed capers, look first for the small ones, the nonpariel capers. Capers of any kind should be soaked to remove the brine or salt, but salted capers need soaking and rinsing several times to remove the salt and leave the lovely caper flavor. It's a moment of extra effort, but well worth the time.
Of course you may add or subtract as you wish. Tomato paste or small diced tomato is not uncommon. It's your sauce so make it as you wish.
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Batter or bread or a hybrid, find what suits your skills and preferences, but do make the sauce. It really is good on almost everything. Especially good on the fried green tomatoes as well as crab cakes.
