I was on vacation recently and decided to go back to my southern roots. Lucky for me I had some green tomatoes in the refrigerator (the intent was not to make fried green tomatoes). Too bad I didn’t have the movie on me. But I did rock out to some Sweet Home Alabama on my guitar while eating a batch.

Ingredients

• 4 large green tomatoes
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter milk
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Method

1. Remove stem. Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick.
2. Whisk eggs, milk, and sugar together in a medium-size bowl.
3. Pour flour onto a plate.
4. Mix cornmeal, salt, pepper, paprika on another plate.
5. Coat tomatoes in flour then coat in the egg mixture.
6. Then dredge in cornmeal to completely coat.
7. In a large skillet (I use an iron skillet), pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat.
8. Place tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side.
9. Drain them on paper towels.

Tip: Feeling lazy? Batter the tomatoes instead: Prepare pancake mix (from a box). Dust the sliced tomatoes in flour, dip into pancake mix, and fry.