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Tomato Curry
Tomato curry may be a new idea to some-it certainly is a tasty dish. Scald, skin and cut fine 4 large tomatoes; finely chop I small onion and I tart apple. Fry the onion in 1 teaspoonful of butter, add the apple and cook for five minutes. Pour over enough stock to cover, stir in the tomatoes, 1 teaspoonful of lemon juice or vinegar, I small teaspoonful of curry powder and salt to taste. Heat to the simmering point, add 1/2 cupful of well washed rice and cook until the moisture is barely absorbed, then stir in 1 tablespoonful of butter.
A simple stovetop pilaf-style dish that leans on the apple for sweetness and the curry powder for warmth. Two quantities in the original need thought before you start.
- On the riceThe printed page gives 1/2 cupful of rice, which is what the text now reads. Have hot stock on hand and add it as needed, since four tomatoes and the initial stock may not be enough to cook the rice through.
- Stock is unmeasured"Enough stock to cover" the onion and apple is a small amount, but raw rice needs roughly twice its volume in liquid. Plan on about 1½ cups total liquid for ¾ cup of rice, counting the juice the tomatoes release.
- Rice type mattersAn unspecified "well washed rice" is most easily handled with a plain long or medium grain. Washing removes surface starch so the grains stay separate; keep doing it. Covered over low heat, such rice will take roughly 15-18 minutes, though the recipe itself only says to cook until the moisture is barely absorbed and does not say to cover the pan.
- Curry powderCommercial blends of the period were generally less assertive than many modern ones, so taste before adding more. Blooming the powder in the butter with the onion rather than stirring it into the liquid avoids a raw, dusty edge, though this is a departure from the order given.
- Scalding the tomatoesThirty seconds in boiling water then straight into cold water loosens the skins. Out of season, tinned chopped tomatoes will stand in, but four large fresh tomatoes are more than one 14 oz tin; use two tins or make up the difference.
- Tart appleA Bramley will collapse into the sauce; a Granny Smith holds its shape more. The recipe cooks the apple for five minutes before the liquid goes in.
- YieldNot stated in the original; reckon on two generous servings as a main or four as a side, depending on how the rice quantity is resolved. Fork in the final tablespoon of butter off the heat and let it stand covered for five minutes.
Tomato curry sits in a long line of Anglo-American "curries" that came home with returning colonial households and were then adapted to suit commercial curry powder, which was being sold in Britain as a ready-mixed spice from the late eighteenth century. The tart apple is characteristic: chopped apple in a curry sauce was common in English and American cookery of the period, a cheap way to supply the sweet-sour note that tamarind, coconut or fresh chilli would have given in South Asia. Rice, one onion, one apple and a spoon of spice turned four tomatoes into a full meal, and the author appears to have expected readers to find the idea unfamiliar, hence the slightly coaxing first sentence.