think about southern cooking, visions of ham hocks, man-n-cheese and bacon dance in my head. But 10 years ago I swore off eating all things that had legs, or made a sound. It certainly limits me sometimes. This is probably why I lean more towards ethnic cuisines such as indian or tai. Even chinese caters more towards a plant based diet.
However I love the homey-ness of southern comfort food. So its my mission (at least todays mission) to prepare a menu stellar enough to be served on any southern table. Of course mac-n-cheese always comes to my mind..but I'm trying to eat a little healthier these days. So I'm not sure exactly how much mac-n-cheese Ill be eating lol. Visions of Paula Deen saying "I looove my butter yaul" dance in my head as I read through her recipes. What's a struggling weight watcher member to do. I'm going to try to focus on the vegetables and healthy grains. (But of course splurge on desert)
The first course in my southern series is an appetizer of fried green tomatoes with a chipotle dipping sauce. This is so stereotypically southern I couldn't resist. It even has a movie named after it. And they are easy. I don't have a deep fryer so I do mine in. A regular frying pan. I guess it makes me feel a little better about eating something fried if its done in a shallow pan lol
Fried green tomatoes
4 medium green tomatoes
Salt and pepper
Self rising flour
Buttermilk
Slice your tomatoes about an 1/8th of an inch thick. Salt them and let them sit for about 30 minutes. This will allow for the salt to pull the water out of them. Nothing worse than soggy tomatoes. After you've drained them. Pat them dry and sprinkle with black pepper. At this point you'll want to start getting your oil hot. I like vegetable or canola. Just remember you don't want to put too many in your pan at one time. Too many tomatoes in your pan will bring down the temperature considerably. They will take forever to get GBD (golden brown and deliscious), thus resulting in oily tomatoes. Oily tomatoes do not kick ass. So make a note...NO OVERCROWDING. Tomatoes need room.
Ok...when your oil is nice and hot, take a tomato and dip it in the buttermilk and then dredge it in the self rising flour and into the hot pan. Fry until Golden.
Chipotle dipping sauce
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup fat free plain yogurt (not vanilla..I said plain!)
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce chopped. Remove seeds and ribs to tone down the heat
1 tbs of adoba sauce from peppers
2 tbsp fresh chopped cilantro
Mix everything together and put in the fridge. This sauce tastes better when you let the flavors marry.
I hope you like and try this recipe..and please stay tuned for my next southern recipe. Off for now boys and girls!!
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