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Curried Tomatoes

Tomatoes cooked with butter, curry sauce, salt, and pepper until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the tomatoes in half and place them in a granite pan.

  2. Sprinkle the tomatoes with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of butter on each tomato half.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until the tomatoes are soft but still hold their shape.

  2. Serve the tomatoes on a hot dish, surrounded by curry sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture, softening while keeping their shape when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the tomato surfaces brown and carry flavour.
Curry sauce
Supplies the spiced flavour and aroma that surrounds the tomatoes when served.

The step that matters

Cook until the tomatoes are soft but still hold their shape. Tomato flesh breaks down with prolonged heat, so removing them once softened but intact keeps their texture and stops them collapsing into a puree.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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