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Curried Tomatoes

A baked casserole of tomatoes and rice flavored with curry, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Curried Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. Mix the curry powder, salt, and pepper into the tomatoes.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half of the tomatoes in a baking dish.

  2. Add a layer of uncooked rice on top of the tomatoes.

  3. Repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of tomatoes.

  4. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  6. Serve in the baking dish.

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 + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed or canned tomatoes
Provide the liquid and acidity that moisten and flavor the rice as it cooks.
Rice
Forms the starchy body of the casserole, absorbing tomato liquid as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the bread crumb topping brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the casserole.

The step that matters

Layer and bake with enough liquid. Uncooked rice must absorb liquid from the tomatoes as it bakes. Rice layered thickly or under dry spots may stay firm, so the layers should be evenly moistened with tomato before baking.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, bread, butter. 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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