Hello,

Thanks for your great site, which has helped me rediscover the joys of cooking!

I have a rather strange question. I have a medical condition (to do with excess acid production) which means that I have been ordered to remove tomatoes from my diet. Of course there are loads of recipes without them, but many sauces in Indian food (and food from the Med) use tomatoes as a base (for good reason).

I was wondering if there is anything I could use as a substitute for chopped tomatoes and purees when making these recipes? If not, I can always find other recipes, so its not a big deal, but I am curious about it.

Cheers,

PW

Hello PrivateWiddle

Many curries, meat/chicken/fish or vegetarian, can be made without tomatoes. In India, people often miss out tomatoes, specially in summer, when tomatoes are very expensive.

Add spices to the frying onions, stir for a few seconds and then add main ingredients. If you like the slightly 'tart' taste of tomato based curries, add roughly equivalent amount of thick yoghurt. This you can learn by adding a bit, mixing, tasting and then adding some more.

You can also use tamarind paste, in small amounts, as a substitute for tomatoes. Tamarind is quite strong, so add only a little at a time. However, this may not suit your medical condition, yoghurt is soothing to the stomach mucous membrane, tamarind isn't.

Many dry (without gravy) and curried vegetable dishes can be made without tomatoes same as above.

If you want to ask about specific dishes, let me know, I will try to help you out as much as I can.

Mamta

Not being a medical person but thinking aloud.. if you over produce acid in your system so have to remove acidic tomatoes I presume it also means things like vinegar, lemon etc..... could you not do a "yin and yang" type thing where you counter the acidic with alkaline?... (not sure other than maybe baking powder what you can eat that is alkaline.. ? )

Hello again,

Thank you for your answer, I will be experimenting with the ideas in your advice, I appreciate you taking the time to help me. I'll let you know how I get on.

Also thank you to AskCy for thoughts. You are correct that I have to be careful with acidic foods which add more acid, and also with fats which can be converted to acid. However tomatoes contain chemicals which actually stimulate acid production rather than being particularly acidic themselves and therefore are banned (and i like them so its a shame).

If anyone has come across this thread and suffers from chronic acid problems please consider the following:

On no account should you use antacid tablets to attempt to control this condition, you will actually make it worse, the more of these you take, the more your body will overcompensate and some people end up eating several packets a day. My GP would have them banned!

There is medication available which can effectivley control this condition, and there is the possibility of a permanent solution in keyhole surgery for those people who suffer from acidic reflux because of a hiatus hernia.

If you suffer from persistent acid problems then please see your GP as it may be a symptom of a hernia. Treatment can save you hours of misery, improve your sleep and allow you to enjoy food again. I was surprised at how common this condition is.

Allowing this condition to persist has some very unpleasant risks associated with it so there is every reason to get it dealt with early.

http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=571

Finally, learn to cook and cut processed foods out of your diet. Avoid fatty flavoured snacks like crisps and cut down or eliminate sugar. Fizzy drinks whether sugary or artificially sweetened are very bad for this and smoking makes it worse.

Sorry to use up space on this, but I think it is very much a food related issue, as it ruins many people's relationship with food and ironically can be helped greatly by learning to cook.

Thanks,

Liam

No need to appologise, its great to hear about the condition and allow us to understand it a little more.

Glad you are at least getting some control over it and if nothing else its giving you a healthier interest in cooking.

Do I presume your acid problem is the stomach then and not generally in your blood/skin etc?... My partner suffers a little like this since having her gallbladder removed years ago (I think it has something to do with the way the gall bladder is used for the breakdown of fats in your system, but I could be wrong).

Again I'm guessing that things like peppers (capsicum) will be similar to tomatoes and so off the list? (do I also guess you have a problem with potato as they are part of the same family way back in there genes)..?

Steve

in fact tomatoes in Indian food is quite a recent thing, and IMHO, very over done in modern Indian food. In traditional recipes (what that actually means, I wonder) there are very few recipes that use tomatoes, and this goes for potatoes as well, though in this case, the humble spud may be a modern replacement for colacassia. Anyway, in most recipes that call for tomatoes, I would say, originally, they were not there, so to leave them out would probably provide a better product, if fresh ingredients were used, (glutamate in tomato (and mushrooms, some cheese, etc.) adds the fifth 'taste', known as umami).

I do quite a bit of research of old recipes, and the first thing I do is look for tomatoes, and take them out!

HTH

Lapis

I believe umami is present in worcestershire sauce as well !

Steve

Steve, its in anything that goes well with beef steak ;?)

in fact, glutamic acid is an amino acid present in most proteins, usually the greatest amount of any amino acid of those present. When the protein is processed, the protein begins to breakdown, releasing free amino acids. Glutamate (from free glutamic acid) has the characteristic savouryness of monosodium glutamate, (being basically the same thing). I don't know why people get so upset about msg, except maybe some cuisines (like Chinese and Japanese) use it to excess. It is present (naturally) in many foods, especially toms, cheese, meat, mushrooms, and Worcestershire and fruit sauces like HP sauce.

I believe toms are added to Indian dishes to increase the umami (basically msg)but if using good ingredients, I can't see any benefit, and if added to most dishes, they start to taste the same. This, together with potatoes, the ubiquitous use of garam masala and chopped coriander over everything, and quickly we get to what I call the kitchen sink syndrome, everything in! IMHO, Indian food is as much about restraint when in comes to ingredients, where less is more.

As tomatoes were only available seasonally, Indian recipes were often made with tomatoes when they were available and without during the rest of the year so certainly, many recipes have versions with and without tomatoes...

Hi,

it is easy to substitute tomatoe pure with steamed and pureed red bellpeper. I even use this on pizza. Don?t know if this works for you.

Catrin

good point Kavey, but were/are there actually two different recipes or just one, with and one without tomato, it might make a difference. I think I've seen tomatoes added to just about all the commonly made dishes, including rogan josh and dhansak, but those two are obviously tomato-less, as is vindaloo (and potato-less too!)

That I can't tell you - I was born and grew up here in the UK and so I don't have any in-depth knowledge of Indian food let alone the food history. Just little snippets I've picked up! :)

Mum may be able to contribute more when she gets online. (She's visiting family in India at the moment).

Most Indians will not use tomatoes in summer, when tomatoes are too expensive for cooking. You can use many other things to make a nice curry, but the recipe will of course taste different, thhough not inferior. I am sitting here in India with my sister and sister in-law and they have given a few suggestions here;

Yoghurt

Roasted Gram flour

Ground cashews

Corn flour

Khoa/Khoya (Indian style condensed milk colid)

Double cream

To make these dishes 'tart' add a little 'amchoor' (dry mango powder) or lemon juice, except when using cream or condensed milk, which will be curdled by lemon juice.

Mamta

So agree with the Cashews!

And thanks for the reminder of amchoor.

= Tim

So the recipes that have tomatoes as a base, are they specific to certain areas that grow tomatoes all year around or is it like us eating salad during the summer and not in winter ?

Steve

Hello Steve

No, they are not specific to any area. People use tomatoes in everything these days because they are more readily available all the year around, including tinned ones. Most Indian dishes can be and are often cooked without tomatoes. Part of the fun in Indian food in India is that the tastes of dishes vary with seasons.

Mamta

when I cooked in India for Indian friends, I was told they didn't use tinned tomatoes, which tend to have more flavour, but are a little sweet. The fresh tomatoes I used were a little out of season, and like most cheap UK supermaket toms, rather hard and not sweet at all. However, they seem to 'marry' with what I was cooking better than the sweet tinned plum tomatoes I used to use. Same goes for other ingredients, the Indian equivalent was often less sweet, but seemed to help produce a better product. This was quite obvious with (unsweetened ) yoghurt and especially cream.

I think the inclusion of tomatoes in many dishes has only come about in the last hundred years or so, even though they have been around in India a lot longer. Same with potato, though in this instance, the humble spud may well have replaced the indigenous colacassia. Now it seems to me, every other dish contains tomatoes and potatoes, I think, to the detriment of the dishes.

Mamta, do recipes vary (with regard to spicing, etc.) when using/not using tomatoes. Is there anything else this applies to.

recipes with tomatoes often get a pinch of sugar if the tomatoes are a little bitter !

Steve

I just typed a lomg reply and it diappeared! I am working o9n a computer which has been long past it's best, with keys with a mind of there own!

This is true that use of tomatoes in every dish, and onions for that matter, has only came about recently, not even 100 years, only in the last 30-40 years. When I was a child, we saw tomatoes only in winters. My mum often tinned/bottled tomatoes for the rest of the year, but this was not the norm in those days. She only did it because my father had learnt to and taught her. Thse tomatoes were precious and were used only in special circumstances. Use of too much onion/tomatoes in everything actually takes away from their taste in my humble opinion (as Lapis also mentions), although even I use them more often than I did 30 years ago.

Lapis, spices vary so much for all sorts of reasons, not just use of tomatoes. I myself am always using diffrent 'tarkas' or mix of spiices every time I cook a dish. Recipes only give a basic idea of how to make a dish, you must then feel free to experiment and adjust to your ownlikes and dislikes.

Mamta

Gosh, it is hot here, 34-35 in the day and in 20's in the evenings and no fan in the computer room!

I don't think we are seeing 20 during the day here !

Steve

In some of the Indian languages, tomato is literally translated as 'English Aubergine' and tends to lead one to believe that its introduction to the Sub-Continent only occurred in the last 200 years. Therefore, similarly with chillies and potatoes, Indian cuisine subsisted on alternative ingredients to these three for countless centuries. When I use tomatoes in Indian cooking, it is generally only for colour, decoration and/or tartness, and I also avoid tinned tomatoes, which are much better for mediterranean dishes. In addition to amchoor powder and tamarind, I also use semi-dried kokum (mangosteen) and Anardana powder (dried pomegranate seed). The former gives a delightful ruby-red colour together with a tart fresh flavour and the latter is claimed to actually ease heartburn.

Hi,

I suffer from vitiligo and am following ayurvedic treatment for it that involves several dietary restrictions. One of the big ones is that I'm not allowed to eat anything sour. So that means no tomatoes, lemon, dahi, imli, vinegar, etc.

I just wanted to know if I just omit the tomatoes or other sour things from your recipes (for paneer simla mirch for instance) would the dish still taste as good?

Hello Teesha

Most traditional Indian curries are made without tomatoes during summer months, when tomatoes are rather expensive in India. If you are not allowed sour things, you don't really have a choice, just cook without them. It will taste different but still quite good. Good luck with your treatment.

Mamta