Skip to main content
Main

Curried Tomatoes

A tomato dish simmered with curry, butter, onion, apple, gravy, MARMITE, and lemon juice, served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Curried Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and finely mince the onion.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and fry the onion until light brown.

  2. Add the curry powder, minced apple, gravy, and MARMITE. Stir well.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes.

  4. Peel the tomatoes and add them to the sauce. Cook gently.

  5. A few minutes before serving, stir in the lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve with a border of plainly boiled 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.

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

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

  2. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

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

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 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

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture of the dish as they soften in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and helps it brown in the pan.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base as it browns in butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavour that defines the dish.
Sour apple
Adds acidity and a touch of sweetness that balances the curry spices.
Gravy enriched with marmite
Contributes savoury depth and salty, umami richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the tomatoes gently. Once peeled tomatoes go into the sauce, high heat can make them break down unevenly and turn the sauce watery or bitter. Gentle cooking keeps them tender and holds the sauce together.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, onion, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes