And following on from Australia Day, I thought I’d go American. Southern Fried American. I started out thinking buffalo wings were the answer, but since I made karaage for Japan, I decided not to OD on fried chicken. Blasphemy, I know. I was going to celebrate by going bear hunting or something but there isn’t really any bears around here, and the local wildlife is already being hunted for no reason, so I just ate in quiet admiration about how one of the fattest nations on earth got to be that way.
This is my very successful, in my opinion, attempt at fried green tomatos and shrimp grits. It’s a heart attack inducing plate of butter, cheese, fried things, bacon and prawns. It’s like it was a dish made especially for me.
I got these recipes online, I can’t remember where so.. yeah. I had to make this in a timely manner, because green tomatos aren’t always readily available around these parts (See? I speak the lingo!) so when I saw them in Coles, being steadfastly avoided by everyone else I had to give them a home.
I didn’t buy instant grits, partly because they are mail order only that I can tell. Also, on looking up the difference between that and polenta on various US websites, the answer was, the difference was little to none. Apparently they are made of different parts of the corn, and grits is meant to be mushier while Italian polenta is meant to set. Yellow and white are used in the US, so I just used fine milled polenta. A metric ton of butter and slow cooking meant that it wouldn’t set, and remain mushy and delicious.
This was just for me, so just use your brain when multiplying. I didn’t even measure anything, so these measurements are fairly made up.
Fried Green Tomatoes:
1 Green Tomato (You can use actual non ripes ones, or buy the actual green variety, which is what I did)
1 egg (Only really need half, for this amount of tomato, but whatevs)
Dash of buttermilk (glob, glug, whatever you call it)
Half cup of flour
Sprinkling of cayenne pepper powder
Beat the egg, buttermilk and flour and cayenne till it’s a thick batter that looks like pancake mix. Slice the tomato/s fairly thick, my tomato yielded 4 slices. Poke out the seeds, otherwise you’ll have sloppy tomatoes, and you want them to go crispy.
Dip the tomatoes in and fry til golden brown. They taste like slightly spicy crispy French toast rounds filled with tomato sauce. YERM.
Shrimp Grits:
4 x prawns
1 x slice bacon
quarter of an onion, diced
1 garlic clove
Half a cup of polenta, fine milled
A tub of butter
about 30gm of cheese
Put the polenta in a pot of water and simmer on ultra-low til the water is gone, stiring the whole time. DO NOT LET THIS BURN. DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED. If you don’t think you can do this, buy instant polenta and it takes like, 5 mins. The consistency should be sort of like porridge.
On another burner, heat a spoonful of butter and stir fry the bacon, prawns, onion and garlic til delicious.
Grab the polenta, and mix in about two tablespoons of butter or more, and the cheese till it melts. Add salt and pepper, and pour into a bowl. Arrange the bacon and prawn combo on top, eat with the tomatoes if you have any left.
I can’t stress how strangely delicious this is, and how I’m already shamefully adding it to my breakfast/lunch and dinner rotation. I think next time I’ll try a touch of blue cheese in there.. ooh baby.