Here in Arkansas, the growing season runs long, very long, right up to winter. My tomato plants had stopped growing in the heat of the summer, but came back with a vigor come fall. I was looking forward to salads and sauces with nice ripe, red tomatoes.
But then the cold snap came. When I lived in New England, we called them nor’easters. I don’t know what Arkansans call them down here, other than darn cold. And for that reason, I had to pick every single green tomato. I had an overabundance. But thanks to @heynanabread on Instagram, I knew just what to do with them: make Green Tomato Pie.
I was curious as to what this could be—tomatoes, in a pie? But after making it, I can tell you, it is delicious. The tomatoes simply act as a wonderful fall fruit, somewhere between a plum and an apple. The traditional apple pie spices and the golden raisins work very well together, and result in a delicious fall pie that—if you closed your eyes—you would think was a sweet apple pie.
Here’s how I make it. (The recipe card is at the bottom of the page.)
First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees, and place a metal baking sheet pan in the center of your oven.
Let’s talk about green tomatoes. Green tomatoes are just unripe tomatoes. You need to buy them fresh, and if you ask around, I bet your gardening neighbor or your local farmer’s market will be more than happy to save you some.
You’ll need about 6 cups of green tomatoes, enough to fill a pie shell at least ¾” tall. You can simply take a pie tin and fill it up with whole green tomatoes, which will give you an idea of how many you need. If you accidentally buy too many, lucky you. You can make a second pie, or make fried green tomatoes by simply dredging them in flour or cornmeal, frying them in hot oil, and serving them with ranch dressing. Do the same with a couple of dill pickles cut into rounds and it will rock your world. Seriously, lucky you!
Fried Green Tomatoes
Fried Dill Pickles
Back to the recipe. Slice up your green tomatoes nice and thin. I sliced these no thicker than ⅛”. You certainly could go thicker, but these have the skin on and I wanted to make sure that they could be cut through very easily with a fork, so I kept them thin.
And now an aside on how to cut a tomato. (Standing on soap box.) Use a serrated (bread) knife to cut your tomatoes. It will make perfect thin cuts, without tearing the tomato. (If you don’t have a serrated knife, sharpen your knife before use, and make a tiny slit with the tip of the knife at the ⅛” mark. Then cut across the tomato. That will prevent you from crushing the tomato. Total kitchen secret right there. If I were on that Next Food Network Star show, that would be one of my giveaway kitchen secrets for the demonstration bits.) Before you slice the tomato, turn the stem hole to the side, so that it no longer faces up and down. I am right handed, so I face it directly left. Then I cut across the tomato from the bottom end of the tomato (which faces right), all the way left, up to the stem hole. If you cut the tomato in that manner, you end up with very pretty looking tomato slices because of the way the inside of the tomato is shown (kitchen secret #2). If instead you cut through the stem end (like if the stem hole is facing up when you make the cuts), you get really ugly looking tomato slices that mostly show white tomato walls. Don’t make ugly tomato slices. (If you accidentally cut it the wrong way the first time, rotate the tomato 90 degrees in any direction and resume cutting.)
Roll out your pie dough and fit it into the bottom of a 9” pie plate. Yes, I’m using an instant pie dough round from the store. I am a firm believer in quick and easy pies, and in using instant pie dough rounds to do so, especially when making pie on a Tuesday evening! Besides, they actually taste pretty good. I know, sacrilege. (Feel free to make your dough by hand, and see My Favorite Cherry Pie recipe for guidance.)
Starting from the outer edge of the pie, ring the tomato slices around and around filling from the outer edge to the middle, and then starting over.
Go up at least ¾ of the height of the pie. I like full pies, and like any fruit, these will shrink down as they cook. Fuller is better!
Now we need to sweeten and spice things up a bit. In a bowl, mix together:
- 1 ¼ cups white sugar
- 2 ½ tablespoons minute tapioca (look for this in the baking aisle—you want the smallest white pellets. If you get large ones, you can grind it into a powder in your spice grinder.)
- 1 tablespoon grated orange zest (any orange; we had mandarin oranges in the house)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- ¼ cup golden raisins
Mix this together well, and then pour it over your pie.
Carefully place your second pie dough round on the pie and crimp the edges together so that they are sealed. Cut off any extra pie dough that is left on the edges after the two rounds are pressed together at the rim.
Take an egg, separate the yolk out and save for another use (or feed it to your dog—mine love them). Mix up the egg white a little bit to break down any long protein strands, and then brush the egg white across the pie. I use a silicone brush for this. You can use a piece of paper towel folded into a long 1” thin strip that you dunk and brush with. (Kitchen secret #3 right there.)
I do brush the edges of the pie, because I will end up covering them about 15 minutes in. If you don’t have a pie edge protector or enough tinfoil handy to make one, don’t put egg on the rim of the pie—it will brown far before the rest of the pie and you won’t like how burnt that will taste in the end. (To make a tinfoil pie edge protector, take a 2 foot sheet of tin foil, cut it down the middle so that you now have two 2 foot sheets that are narrower, and fold each sheet so that it is about 2” wide. Curve each into a half moon shape—equal to the size of a half pie. You will drop those gently over the top of the pie after the pie edges are nicely browned. That’s kitchen secret #4.)
Once you have covered the pie with the egg white, dust it with about ¼ cup of white sugar. Get it all over the pie, nice and thinly. Those two ingredients will make the top of the pie brown very nicely, and give it a light flaky crunchy sweet crust. You will look like a pie hero. (That’s what, the fifth kitchen secret. It’s pretty rare that I give more than a two-fer in one recipe!) Cut a series of steam vents in the top. I like the star shape but there’s no magic to this—any number of slits or shape will do.
Set the pie in your oven. I keep one of those pizza stones in the middle rack of my oven at all times. (Below it lives my cast iron skillet.) They love life in the oven. Having a hot pizza stone to put the pie on is your third secret. Here’s why: having that hot surface crisps up the bottom of the pie shell before the fruit has time to make the bottom of the pie gummy. If you don’t have a pizza stone living in your oven, put a metal baking sheet in your oven when you heat up your oven.
Let this cook about 15 minutes or so. Once the edges are just browned, put on your pie edge protector. Note that you do not have to push the pie edge protector down onto the pie. You can just set it on the edges. The same goes for the tinfoil edge protector, if you are using it. Don’t burn yourself by trying to get it perfectly on the edges; just place it above the edges. So long as it blocks the heat coming down from the top of your oven, your job is done. (Yes, kitchen secret #6. I’m on a roll.)
Here’s what it looks like if you use a tinfoil edge protector. Careful, hot! Don’t try and press them down onto the pie!
Let this cook until the center of the pie is nice and golden brown. It took me about 40 minutes. If you are getting a really browned top but you haven’t cooked this anywhere near 40 minutes, crank down your oven to 350 degrees, open your door for a minute to help it get there, and then ride it out for at least a total of 40 minutes.
When you have it nicely browned, pull it out of the oven to rest. Give it about 45 minutes to an hour to rest. This allows the tapioca to firm up any excess liquid inside. It won’t be solid like jello, but just won’t be soupy and run all over the plates.
Serve with vanilla ice cream and some bourbon. It is fantastic, and was a total eye-opener for me. Delicious, flaky, fruity, spicy, and all from a bunch of green tomatoes in my garden. This pie may change your life. It did mine.
- 6 cups green tomatoes
- Refrigerated pie dough, 2 rounds
- 1 ¼ cups white sugar
- 2 ½ tablespoons minute tapioca (look for this in the baking aisle—you want the smallest white pellets. If you get large ones, you can grind it into a powder in your spice grinder.)
- 1 tablespoon grated orange zest (any orange; we had mandarin oranges in the house)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- ¼ cup golden raisins
- 1 egg white, beaten
- ¼ cup sugar
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees, and place a metal baking sheet pan in the center of your oven.
- Slice up your green tomatoes nice and thin. I sliced these no thicker than ⅛”. You certainly could go thicker, but these have the skin on and I wanted to make sure that they could be cut through very easily with a fork, so I kept them thin.
- Roll out your pie dough and fit it into the bottom of a 9” pie plate.
- Starting from the outer edge of the pie, ring the tomato slices around and around filling from the outer edge to the middle, and then starting over.
- Go up at least ¾ of the height of the pie. I like full pies, and like any fruit, these will shrink down as they cook. Fuller is better!
- In a bowl, mix together the first 1 ¼ cups white sugar, the tapioca, grated orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins. Pour that over the pie.
- Carefully place your second pie dough round on the pie and crimp the edges together so that they are sealed. Cut off any extra pie dough that is left on the edges after the two rounds are pressed together at the rim.
- Take an egg, separate the yolk out and save for another use. Mix up the egg white a little bit to break down any long protein strands, and then brush the egg white across the pie. I use a silicone brush for this. You can use a piece of paper towel folded into a long 1” thin strip that you dunk and brush with.
- I do brush the edges of the pie, because I will end up covering them about 15 minutes in. If you don’t have a pie edge protector or enough tinfoil handy to make one, don’t put egg on the rim of the pie—it will brown far before the rest of the pie and you won’t like how burnt that will taste in the end. (To make a tinfoil pie edge protector, take a 2 foot sheet of tin foil, cut it down the middle so that you now have two 2 foot sheets that are narrower, and fold each sheet so that it is about 2” wide. Curve each into a half moon shape—equal to the size of a half pie. You will drop those gently over the top of the pie after the pie edges are nicely browned.)
- Once you have covered the pie with the egg white, dust it with about ¼ cup of white sugar. Get it all over the pie, nice and thinly. Those two ingredients will make the top of the pie brown very nicely, and give it a light flaky crunchy sweet crust. You will look like a pie hero. (That’s what, the fifth kitchen secret. It’s pretty rare that I give more than a two-fer in one recipe!) Cut a series of steam vents in the top. I like the star shape but there’s no magic to this—any number of slits or shape will do.
- Set the pie in your oven on top of the hot baking sheet. Be careful!
- Let this cook about 15 minutes or so. Once the edges of the pie are just browned, put on your pie edge protector. Note that you do not have to push the pie edge protector down onto the pie. You can just set it on the edges. The same goes for the tinfoil edge protector, if you are using it. Don’t burn yourself by trying to get it perfectly on the edges; just place it above the edges. So long as it blocks the heat coming down from the top of your oven, your job is done.
- Let this cook until the center of the pie is nice and golden brown. It took me about 40 minutes. If you are getting a really browned top but you haven’t cooked this anywhere near 40 minutes, crank down your oven to 350 degrees, open your door for a minute to help it get there, and then ride it out for at least a total of 40 minutes.
- When you have it nicely browned, pull it out of the oven to rest. Give it about 45 minutes to an hour to rest. This allows the tapioca to firm up any excess liquid inside. It won’t be solid like jello, but just won’t be soupy and run all over the plates.
- Serve with vanilla ice cream and some bourbon. It is fantastic, and was a total eye-opener for me. Delicious, flaky, fruity, spicy, and all from a bunch of green tomatoes in my garden. This pie may change your life. It did mine.
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