Tomato Curry
A tomato curry is an excellent accompaniment to baked veal. Mix a tablespoonful of curry powder with a quart of cooked and seasoned tomatoes; put this in a dish, with alternate layers of uncooked rice, using a cupful of the latter in all; let the top layer be of bread crumbs; dot with butter, and bake an hour or until the rice is done.
Despite the name, this is really a baked curried rice casserole — the tomatoes and curry powder cook the raw rice tender right in the oven.
- A quart = 4 cupsUse about 4 cups of cooked, seasoned tomatoes (canned is fine); a cupful of raw rice is roughly 1 cup uncooked.
- Curry powderOne tablespoon of commercial curry powder — the same blended spice mix Victorian cooks kept on the shelf; add more if you like more heat and color.
- Bake in a moderate oven350°F (175°C) for about an hour; the dish is done when the rice has drunk up the liquid and turned tender.
- Keep it moistRaw rice needs liquid to cook — if your tomatoes are thick, loosen them with a little water or stock so the rice doesn’t dry out or scorch.
- Butter the crumb topA layer of bread crumbs dotted with butter gives a browned lid — figure about 1 Tbsp of butter dotted over the top.
Curry powder is a British invention more than an Indian one: colonial cooks wanted the flavors of the subcontinent without its dozens of separate spices, so merchants sold ready-mixed “curry powder” from the late 18th century onward. It crossed the Atlantic quickly, and by the 1800s a tin of it could be found in many a well-stocked American kitchen. In Louisiana, where rice was already the daily grain, a curried tomato-and-rice dish like this one was an easy and fashionable way to put it to use.
From page 22 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
