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Fried Green Tomatoes

Fried green tomatoes are sliced, coated in egg and cracker crumbs, chilled, then fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fried Green Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe green tomatoes with a damp cloth.

  2. Cut them into slices half an inch thick.

  3. Dip the slices in beaten egg and then in cracker crumbs.

  4. Set the coated slices in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in butter until golden brown.

  2. Drain excess grease and serve on a hot platter.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Tomato + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Firm, tart base that holds its shape and softens slightly while frying.
Egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the tomato slices so the coating stays in place.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating that contrasts with the soft tomato inside.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the coating and adds rich flavour.

The step that matters

Chilling the coated slices. Resting the breaded slices in the refrigerator lets the coating dry and adhere, so it is less likely to slide off or soak up grease in the pan.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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