May 11, 2012
Acura Presents: Chef Kevin Gillespie’s Fried Green Tomatoes with Spicy Raita
Fried green tomatoes make a delicious traditional Southern side dish. Pair them with Top Chef’s Season 6 fan favorite Kevin Gillespie, beautiful Atlanta, and the all-new Acura RDX, and you have an unbeatable combination.
Today, Chef Kevin Gillespie shared his personal fried green tomatoes recipe with fans in the Acura tent at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival to rave reviews. But Kevin is no stranger to great reviews. After taking on the competition on Season 6 of Top Chef, Gillespie returned to his position as Executive Chef at Woodfire Grill in Atlanta prepared to wow.
Fresh, in-season food is a staple at Woodfire, and Kevin wants you to make it a staple in your home. With a couple cookbooks in the works, Gillespie’s recipes will soon be yours to impress friends and family. The first of his books, Fire in my Belly, includes over 120 recipes focused on great ingredients and delicious results worthy of a restaurant kitchen, but easily accomplished in the home.
Acura is excited to grant us all a sneak preview of that amazing fried green tomatoes recipe so your kitchen can be as exciting as the Festival this weekend. So what are you waiting for? Here is Chef Kevin Gillespie’s classic Southern dish with a modern twist, with an introduction from the man himself:
There are as many ways to fry a green tomato as there are to scramble an egg. My granny always dredged them in cornmeal and cooked them in bacon grease. I liked the bacon, but the breading got soggy. I like my fried green tomatoes supercrunchy. You have to crisp them up fast enough so that the tomato doesn’t get mushy. I use flour, egg, and panko bread crumbs for crunch. It’s not traditional. But it works a lot better than anything else I’ve tried. I totally ripped this method off my friends Kevin and Lisa Clark, who run Home Grown restaurant in Atlanta. However, I serve the tomatoes with a creamy, spicy sauce, which is hardly ever done in the South. In this dish, I experimented once again with crossing Southern and Indian cuisine. The spice trade routes naturally bring these two cuisines together. So I made a raita out of whole goat’s milk yogurt spiced up with Indian green chile pickles. The spicy-tart, creamy yogurt works perfectly with the fried green tomatoes. If you can’t find goat’s milk yogurt, use the milder cow’s milk variety. For the Indian chile pickles, try an Indian food market or order them online. Hot mango pickle also works well in a pinch. Or substitute any Indian pickle and add some finely minced jalapeno chile pepper.
Fried Green Tomatoes
Ingredients:
Grapeseed oil (about 2 cups, for frying)
3 baseball-size green tomatoes
Salt and ground black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 cup panko bread crumbs, finely ground and sifted
Espelette pepper
Spicy raita (recipe follows)
Directions:
1. Line a platter with paper towels and set aside.
2. Heat a deep skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 inches of oil to the pan. Heat the oil to 350° F. Or heat the oil in a deep fryer to 350° F.
3. Cut the tomatoes into 1/2-inch thick slices and season with salt and pepper. Bread the tomatoes with the flour, egg, and panko, one step at a time. Add the tomatoes to the oil and fry until GBD, about 3 minutes per side. If you’re using a deep fryer, the cooking time will be about 4 minutes total. Transfer the tomatoes to the paper towels and immediately sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and Espelette pepper. Serve with a generous portion of the raita.
Spicy Raita
Ingredients:
3/4 cup plain yogurt, preferably goat’s milk
1 clove garlic
1 carrot, peeled
1 lime
1 tbsp finely chopped spicy Indian green chile pickles
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 tsp cumin seeds
Directions:
1. Spoon the yogurt into a medium mixing bowl. Grate the garlic on a Microplane grater directly into the yogurt. Again, using the Microplane, grate and measure out 3 tablespoons of the carrot and mix it into the yogurt, carrot juice and all. Squeeze 1 tablespoon lime juice into the mixture, then stir in the pickles and mustard.
2. Toast the cumin seeds in a small dry skillet over low heat until they turn a shade darker and develop a deep nutty aroma, about 4 minutes, shaking the pan now and then. Slow toasting gives the cumin a real depth of flavor that releases into the sauce over time. Tilt the cumin from the skillet directly into the yogurt. Let stand for at least a few hours before using. The raita is best made a day in advance so the flavors can fully develop. Store it, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Recipe from Fire in My Belly by Kevin Gillespie/Andrews McMeel Publishing. Fire in My Belly by Kevin Gillespie is available beginning October 9th, 2012. Click here if you wish to preorder your copy.
This guest blog post was written by 2012 Advisory Council member 
This guest blog post was written by 2012 Advisory Council member 
In just one week, we’ll be welcoming hundreds of chefs, sommeliers, and mixologists along with a few thousand of our closest food-loving friends to Midtown for the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival! Things are falling into place at the Festival site (
I am especially thrilled to be participating in the 