Cooking with Green Tomatoes

[agnolottigirl]

I have about a ton and a half of green tomatoes, and I've had about as many fried ones as I can stand for one year, so I am trying my hand at canning. I have already made chow-chow (green tomato relish) and a green tomato-apple-lemon chutney.

Anybody have any other recommendations? I've heard of a green tomato marmalade, which sounds interesting, but the only recipe I've found for this is for immediate baking use--not for canning. And since I don't really know what I'm doing, I don't trust that I would can it safely.

[Janedujour]

I had the same problem last year. This year the crop was pretty pathetic (too much rain etc)

The relishes and chutneys sound really good.

Yesterday I made a green tomato salsa with onions, peppers, garlic, cilantro, and lime, salt and pepper, and hot sauce. I used one hot pepper, but had no jalapenos which I would prefer.

I don't have it memorized but on the FoodTV website there's a GREAT recipe by Mario Batali for spaghetti with green tomatos, garlic, reggiano, pesto. It's really good. Check it out!

Some people also use green tomatoes for a "mock" mincemeat pie. Sorry, no recipe.

Good luck!

jane

[agnolottigirl]

Thanks, Jane--

I'll try and track the Batali recipe down! Let me know if you want recipes for the other stuff.

Sue

[Suzanne F]

I'm about to post a recipe for Green Tomato Jam in the eG Recipe Archives. It's from General Foods. Very simple, just tomatoes, lemon juice, sugar, and pectin. I screwed, um, played around with it, adding lemongrass and finely julienne lime leaves when I tried it.

[Nick]

Leave the tomatoes out on the counters, window sills, etc. and they'll ripen. But, you probably already know this.

Edited October 13, 2003 by Nick (log)

[Jaymes]

We've had two or three other threads about green tomatoes...

Don't know right offhand if they included any recipes for "putting up" things, but you might check.

I do know that there were some great ideas, including several for Fried Green Tomatoes.

[Janedujour]

Thanks, Jane--

I'll try and track the Batali recipe down! Let me know if you want recipes for the other stuff.

Sue

Thanks Sue but I think I have them at home. Just wasn't positive...

Jane

[Toliver]

Mario Batali's Spaghetti with Green Tomatoes Spaghetti con Pomodori Verdi

Lots of interesting green tomato recipes on the FoodTV site.

[KarenS]

My mom always made pickles.

[agnolottigirl]

You guys rock! Thanks for all these great ideas!

Nick, I am hoping some more of these things ripen, but I am talking about a LOT of tomatoes--like 4 or 5 laundry baskets full! If I lived somewhere sunnier, I'd leave them out to dry; but I'm outside Seattle, and I suspect I'd end up with a mold farm rather than sun-dried anything. Blech.

Thanks again.

[Jason Perlow]

Put them in big paper bags and close them up, they will ripen faster. Especially if you put a banana in with them.

[Suzanne F]

If you do get a lot of them to ripen and want to dry them, you can dry them in the oven. Cut in half, squeeze out the goosh, place them cut side up on parchment-covered sheet pans, and leave them overnight at the lowest oven temperature with the door ajar. I've had good luck with that, them store them in sealed bags in the freezer.

[Toliver]

Nick, I am hoping some more of these things ripen, but I am talking about a LOT of tomatoes--like 4 or 5 laundry baskets full!

Wow, thy cup overfloweth!

How are you at canning?

[agnolottigirl]

Getting better all the time!!

Actually, I don't know yet. . . the relish-type stuff needs to sit for a while. Boy, will I be bummed if it turns out that all this stuff is terrible!

The only things I've preserved before have been idiot-simple fruit jams, etc. Besides green tomatoes, the other thing we usually have bumper crops of is berries of all types.

[Fresser]

Some happy gardeners at work gave me a basket of green tomatoes but I'm unsure how to prepare them. Any suggestions for Chez Fresser?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Fresser, you are in luck with this particular request! Check out this thread on fried green tomatoes and look at some of the recipes embedded therein ... enjoy your reading!

Particularly, look at andiesenji's recipes and hints .. she has the very best ideas I have seen anywhere!

right here!

[jackal10]

I gave my recipe for sweet green tomato pickle http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...d+green+tomatos

[andiesenji]

Here is the recipe for green tomato pie/marmalade.

This was my great-aunt's recipe, the favorite in our family. She got it from a Shaker society in Kentucky when she visited them for a time in 1925 to exchange herb lore.

She made it in big rectangular cake tins because there were so many of us to feed.

I have cut it down to a manageable size for a single 9 inch pie.

I sometimes add a bit of ginger, either candied or fresh, finely minced and crushed for a bit of a "bite". I have also added Sultanas, or golden raisins when I didn't have quite enough green tomatoes to fill the pie shell. Both variations are very good. You can double the batch and jar it up in 4 pint jars and use it later. It will keep well in the refrigerator for about 3-4 weeks or the freezer for 3-4 months, or longer.

Aunt Hattie Anne's Green Tomato Pie

4 cups green tomatoes chopped in bite-sized pieces

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, freshly ground

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly ground

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Top & bottom pie crusts

1-1/2 tablespoons butter diced

Directions

First prepare dough for a double-crust 9 inch pie. Chill dough while you are preparing the filling, then roll out the dough while the filling is cooling.

Cut aluminum foil in 2-inch wide lengths, enough to go around the circumference of a 9 inch pie pan.

In a large saucepan combine the chopped tomatoes, lemon juice, lemon peel, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring often to keep from burning.

Mix the sugar and cornstarch together and gradually add to tomato mix, stirring constantly. Continue cooking until liquid is clear.

Immediately remove from heat and stir in the butter.

Cool for 15 minutes

Now roll out the dough, line the pan and prick it all over with a fork, sides too, to keep it from blistering.

Preheat oven to 425F.

Pour mixture into the 9-inch pie shell. Cover with top crust and seal the edges so juices will not leak out. Cut several slits in top to allow steam to escape. Fold aluminum foil strips in half lengthwise and crimp all around the edges of the pie to keep crust edges from burning.

Place pie tin on a sheet pan on oven center rack or higher.

Bake for 50 minutes.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or topped with whipped cream CHEESE to which you have added a little sour cream. (You may wonder at this last, but wait until you taste the flavor combination.)

YIELD: 8 servings (or less! - my neighbor's husband likes this so much he takes about a third of a pie for his serving. So I usually make two.)

SUBMITTED BY: Andie Paysinger

Edited October 11, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[snowangel]

This is a recipe that lovebenton0 posted on recipeGullet:

This recipe is based on my childhood memories of grandma's green tomato/corn relish. But she lived on a corn farm in Ohio -- and I've been living and eating in TX for most of my life. So I've kicked it a couple notches on the heat scale. You can adjust that as you wish.

Serve with almost any meat.

Recipe can be divided easily based on your tomatoes.

Enjoy!

4 ears corn/kernels cut from cob

1 large sweet yellow onion/diced

4 cloves garlic/minced

4 c green tomato/peeled and chopped

2 c vinegar

1-1/3 c sugar

1/2 c water

1 tsp each yellow and spicy mustard powder of your choice (or 1 Tbsp each if using prepared)

2 habanero peppers/remove seeds and mince fine (or hot red pepper of your choice)

4 hot banana peppers or jalapenoes/sliced thin and chopped (or your choice -- even milder peppers are OK if you want to tone it down -- about 1/2 cup)

1/2—1 tsp crushed dried red pepper

1-1/2—2 T pickling or kosher salt

2—4 T prepared horseradish (optional if you just can't stand it -- but it does add another layer to the relish)

Combine all ingredients in large pot except horseradish.

Bring to low boil over medium heat, occassionally stirring.

Simmer for about 45 minutes, occassionally stirring.

Add horseradish.

Stir well to insure horseradish is distributed throughout.

Simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Pack quickly into sterilized jars with sterile lids and bands.

I recommend 8 oz. jars.

Makes 6-8 half-pint jars.

It's very good, and if you didn't make that much, you could fridge it instead of processing jars.

[andiesenji]

Here is the recipe for my green tomato chutney, which is a great condiment for all kinds of meats.

Green Tomato Chutney

2 lbs green tomatoes

1 lb mango (or peaches, or apples, even melon will work)

1 large onion

1 large red sweet pepper

1 or 2 jalapeño peppers (or the hot pepper of your choice)

1 medium carrot

3 large cloves garlic

Skin and chop fruit quite fine, by hand is best, looks nicer when finished.

(Small Dice)

1 blade mace or 1/4 teaspoon ground mace

1 oz fresh ginger, cut into slivers

6 whole allspice

6 peppercorns

1 stick cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon celery seed

2 teaspoons mustard seed, black or brown if you can find it

1 oz kosher salt

3/4 lb brown sugar

1 teaspoon tamarind paste or you can use the pulp from Tamarind pods.

(if you can’t find tamarind, you can use 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and the zest of the lemon, however tamarind is the flavor that really makes this special.)

25 fluid ozs malt vinegar.

Tie spices in bag, put vinegar salt and sugar in pan and bring to a boil.

Add fruit and reduce heat.

Simmer for about 2 1/2 hours to 3 hours or until liquid has reduced and mixture has thickened.

Remove from heat.

Ladle into sterilized pint jars. Add lid and rings and process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Cool in the water then remove, wipe dry and tighten rings. The center of the lid should have dimpled, showing a good vacuum seal.

Allow to mature for about 6 weeks to allow flavor to develop fully.

This makes 3-4 pints of chutney, depending on how much the mixture reduces in cooking. I generally have a couple of extra jars prepared, just in case.

[trillium]

So summer is officially long gone, and yesterday I managed to go outside and harvest all of the green fruits that hadn't been damaged by rain and rot. I have a lot. A lot a lot. I don't want to bread and fry them. I don't want to make some sweetish jam preserve thing with them. I'm hoping for ideas for savory food or preserves.

We're happily using the green cherry tomatoes in Thai stir fries, the sour fruitiness is nice with the last of the summer's basil and the brined green peppercorns. We'll also do the typical Chinese stir-fry of beef and the big green tomatoes and green onions but after that I'm fresh out of ideas. The partner votes to broil them all and use them like tomatillos, but we already have tomatillos stashed in the freezer so I'm hoping eGulleteers can help us out! What would you do with 7 kilos of green tomatoes?

thanks,

trillium

[Jason Perlow]

Green Tomato Relish. Our own Mayhaw Man has a killer recipe for it. Makes a great gift, goes great on hot dogs and hamburgers.

[trillium]

Green Tomato Relish. Our own Mayhaw Man has a killer recipe for it. Makes a great gift, goes great on hot dogs and hamburgers.

←

Thanks, and thanks for merging it with this thread. I did a search for green+tomatoes before I posted and didn't pull it up. I think I'm searching wrongly, because I just did a search for green tomato relish with Mayhaw Man as the author and it didn't pull up any recipes, just posts where it is mentioned. Any hints on where to find the recipe on eG?

regards,

trillium

[Gifted Gourmet]

thread with some pickled green tomato items but perhaps you might want to PM Mayhaw Man directly for the exact recipe?

[Jason Perlow]

Brooks (Mayhaw Man) will post his recipe later on.