Name: Curried Rice and Tomatoes
Ingredients: ½ lb Patna rice; 2 teaspoons curry powder; Coarse sea salt to taste; 2 oz butter; 1 lb tomatoes; Pepper to taste; Additional butter for tomatoes

Why it works: Rice and tomato 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 Rice and Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

Wash the rice.
Place the rice in a pot with cold water, bring to a boil, then drain the water.
Mix 1 pint of cold water with the curry powder, then add this mixture to the pot with the rice, butter, and salt.
Cover the rice with buttered paper and simmer gently until the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes.

Bake the tomatoes

Wash the tomatoes.
Place the tomatoes in a flat baking dish with a few spoonfuls of water.
Dust the tomatoes with pepper and salt, and add small pieces of butter on top.
Bake the tomatoes for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on their size and the oven heat.

Serve

Serve the rice in the center of a hot flat dish, surround it with the baked tomatoes, and pour the liquid over the rice.

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.

Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 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

Patna rice: Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the curried liquid as it simmers.
Curry powder: Gives the rice its spiced flavour and yellow colour when stirred into the cooking water.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the rice and tomatoes taste rounded.
Tomatoes: Soften and brown in the oven, adding juicy acidity that contrasts with the rice.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice gently until the water is absorbed. Rice cooked over high heat can scorch on the bottom or turn unevenly cooked before the grains have absorbed the liquid. A gentle simmer under a cover lets the grains hydrate evenly and finish with a dry, fluffy texture.

Swap the tomato

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits about as well
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, pepper. 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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Tomato Bisque61 recipes

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Curried Rice and Tomatoes