We took a trip to Charleston, South Carolina to eat dinner at McCrady’s. This trip was inspired from one of Giada De Laurentiss’ Weekend Getaway shows. She had visited McCrady’s and raved about it. We had never been to South Carolina and we love to try new restaurants so it was added to our list of restaurants to visit. We planned our trip and spent two days exploring the city. While there we also went to Poogan’s Porch to sample the southern classic fried green tomatoes.
Most enjoyable about our visit to Poogan’s Porch was the relaxing atmosphere sitting out on the porch. Our view included stunning gas lit lamps, palm trees and a pink hotel across the street. We loved the fried green tomatoes and decided to try to make them at home with our own Northern spin.
Our recipe started with a trip to the farmer’s market at a park quite nearby our house. We found a variety of tomatoes but settled on some beautiful yellow heirloom tomatoes that caught our eye.
We sliced the tomatoes and seasoned them with a little kosher salt.
We ground up some cumin seeds and added it to a mixture of panko, ground ginger, turmeric, onion powder, and celery salt. We put it through the food processor until it was combined.
In three separate bowls place the following: flour, an egg mixed with milk and finally, the panko mixture.
Place the tomato in the flour, being sure to cover it on all sides.
Dip it in the egg mixture.
Dredge it in the panko mixture.
We decided to cook these in a shallow frying pan filled with canola oil. We did this outside on the side burner of the grill. Cookng this outside keeps that oil smell from permeating the kitchen.
Each tomato was slowly lowered into the oil and left for about four minutes.
After the four or so minutes we removed the tomatoes and put them onto a plate covered with paper towels.
We decided to serve our fried yellow tomatoes with a paprika mayonnaise. We had been given some lovely paprika which was brought back from Hungary. We mixed this with the mayonnaise until it was combined.
Each tomato was dolloped with the paprika mayonnaise. We found this version of a fried tomato to be quite nice. The panko crust was crunchy and the yellow tomato was quite soft inside. While we missed the environment found in Charleston, we loved our fried yellow tomatoes and quite enjoyed reminiscing about our trip.
I’m from Buffalo New york, chicken wings are common that’s what we eat went on vacation to Charleston which is like literally my favorite City ever and went to poogan’s porch.. didn’t know what to order at all so I ordered the fried green tomatoes which now I’ve learned they’re yellow. These are the most delicious things and I still talk about them to this day and I’m trying to keep recreating them because they’re that yummy if you go to poogan’s… Do not miss out on this Southern delicacy just like if you came to Buffalo you would not get wings. I’m just telling I had one order as an appetizer ordered a steak or whatever for dinner but had to have another order of these delicious yummy tomatoes…. I hope you all are surviving covid and I’ve been looking at buying a home in Charleston because the people are so friendly and it’s my literally second favorite city in the United States and I’ve lived a lot of places thank you for the tomatoes be safe
Thanks for your comment, Vikki! We are actually living in Western New York as well. Charleston is a favorite vacation spot of ours. Thanks so much for your readership!