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Curried Tomatoes

A tomato dish simmered with curry, milk, and butter, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the curry base

  1. Finely mince the onion and apple, then fry in the butter until golden.

  2. Sprinkle the curry powder and flour over the mixture and mix well.

  3. Pour in the milk and stir until it boils.

Simmer and serve

  1. Slice the tomatoes and add them to the pot, then simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Season with salt, then serve in a border of rice or with rice molds on a separate 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 of the curry as they soften during simmering.
Butter
Carries the onion and apple, adding fat and richness while they turn golden.
Flour
Thickens the curry base with the milk as it cooks.
Milk
Combines with the flour to form a smooth, thickened sauce.
Rice
Serves as the starchy base that carries the curry on the plate.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and body as it browns in the butter.

The step that matters

Pour in the milk and stir until it boils. Flour needs to reach a boil in the hot liquid for its starch to swell and thicken the sauce; stopping early leaves it thin and floury-tasting, and stirring prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, milk, flour, rice, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, milk, flour, rice, onion. 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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