Fried Red Tomatoes

It’s early September, which means it’s time to go one last round with tomatoes. At the market this week, they had gigantic, gorgeous, but not too perfect tomatoes, and I brought 4 of them home. Two of them went into the tomato and blue cheese salad, and two of them got fried up as a side dish.
This recipe, which comes from Mollie Katzen’s Still Life with Menu, has some strengths and weaknesses. The strength is the taste: it reminded me of eggplant Parmesan, sauce and all. The weakness is the execution: it was really hard for me to bread and fry the tomato slices nicely. My solutions would be to be generous both with the “breading” (really just seasoned flour) and with the fat—I didn’t use enough to get a good sauté. Also you want to use good-tasting tomatoes that are still firm enough to hold up to all this. It is indeed a tricky thing: but worth trying out.

Gratinéed Tomatoes
4 medium (or 2 large) tomatoes
1/2 c. flour
4 T. grated Parmesan

1 T. dried tarragon
1 T. dried basil

1 t. dried thyme

Salt and pepper

2 T. butter

2 T. olive oil

1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered

Core the tomatoes and slice them in 1/2 inch slices. In a pie plate, mix together the flour, Parmesan, tarragon, basil, thyme, and some salt and pepper (note: I cheated and used Herbes de Provence because I couldn't find some of my other herbs). In a large skillet, put the butter, olive oil, and garlic in to heat. When the butter has melted and the garlic has started sizzling, fish it out and put in a layer of tomatoes--don't crowd them. Ms. Katzen wants you to cook these 10 minutes per side, but that seems a bit excessive to me--I think 5 minutes a side is enough. Keep the heat regulated so that the slices are browning but not burning. Keep frying until all the tomatoes are cooked. Let them rest for at least 10 minutes because a cooked tomato is a very hot thing indeed. Enjoy--perhaps with some bacon and lettuce!