Smothered Shrimp over Fried Green Tomatoes for Thanksgiving

Photo of Fred’s Smothered Shrimp over Fried Green Tomatoes and my fall garden



Here’s a dish I created that’s rooted in sustainable gardening and adapted from a dish I saw on a Gulf Coast edition of the show Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel—great show! This time of the year in the Hudson Valley, my garden is producing herbs, cucumbers, green peppers, and green tomatoes. So a couple of Saturdays back I saw in my mind a dish that consisted of sautéed shrimp served with a gravy over crisp fried green tomatoes picked from my garden. That’s how I cook, I visualize the dish in my head first and then I check out a couple of related recipes to create an outline of the necessary ingredients. I made the dish I now call Smothered Shrimp over Fried Green Tomatoes as a Sunday afternoon meal. My children, wife, and mother said it was awesome! Here’s the very inexpensive recipe made with some of the last fruits of my garden and a $9.95 bag of pre-cleaned, shelled, and cooked bag of shrimp from Costco:



Fred’s Smothered Shrimp over Fried Green Tomatoes

Sauté 4 cups of cleaned shrimp in canola oil with a garlic clove, ¼ cup diced green pepper, ¼ cup diced onions, add a bit of fresh, sage, parsley, and salt and pepper. Set the shrimp aside after they are cooked. Prepare fried green tomatoes with 5 large tomatoes. Then put the fried green tomatoes on a cookie sheet and bake for about 12 minutes at 325. Use the leftover oil from frying the tomato to make gravy adding flour and water to make it. Then add the sautéed shrimp.

Remove the now crisp fried green tomatoes from the oven and arrange them on a large platter. Pour the smothered shrimp over the fried green tomatoes and serve. Recipe, which serves about 6, would be a hit on Thanksgiving. Or serve it with a tossed salad and some homemade butter milk biscuits for a Sunday meal. I will share a biscuit recipe and some history tomorrow.