What spices go with tomato

This is the pairing behind butter chicken and most north Indian tomato-cream curries, and it is the dried leaf rather than the seed doing it. Kasuri methi crushed into a tomato sauce at the end supplies the savoury note that home versions of those dishes are almost always missing.

How: Kasuri methi crushed between the palms and stirred in during the last minute

Add alongside: Cumin, Coriander seed, Yoghurt

• The dried leaf, not the seed. Seed at leaf quantities would make the sauce inedibly bitter.

Salsa in nearly all its forms. Jalapeño is grassy and green rather than merely hot, and tomato is sweet and acidic — the pairing works on flavour before it works on heat, which is why a salsa made with a hotter, blander chilli tastes worse rather than stronger.

How: Raw for a fresh salsa; charred for a smokier one

Add alongside: Onion, Coriander leaf, Lemon

Both are sweet, acidic and red, and the spice deepens the tomato rather than contrasting with it. Muhammara and the Turkish red pepper pastes are built on this, and it is why Aleppo pepper suits a tomato sauce where a hotter flake would simply sit on top of it.

How: In muhammara with walnut and pomegranate; Warmed in oil at the start of a tomato sauce

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Mint

Tomato juice with celery salt is the basis of a Bloody Mary, and the pairing works beyond the drink: celery seed gives tomato a savoury vegetal depth that tomato alone lacks, which is why it appears in tomato-based brines, sauces and juices.

How: Celery salt in a Bloody Mary; In a tomato-based pickling brine

Add alongside: Salt, Black pepper, Cayenne pepper

The base of an enormous amount of Mediterranean cooking, and the mechanism is acid against pungency. Tomato is sharp and sweet; garlic supplies the savoury floor underneath it. Long cooking suits the pair particularly well, because tomato needs time to lose its rawness and garlic mellows into sweetness over the same period.

How: Sliced into oil before the tomatoes, cooked gently; Whole crushed cloves in a long sauce, removed before serving

Add alongside: Basil, Oregano, Chilli flakes

Cooked together they make the base of more dishes than almost any other pair: sofrito, mirepoix with tomato, the masala that starts most North Indian curries. Onion supplies sweetness and body, tomato supplies acid and moisture, and the acid keeps the onion sweetness from turning cloying.

How: Onion softened first, tomato added and cooked until the oil separates; Raw and finely diced together as a salsa or kachumber

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Coriander seed

• Adding the tomato too early stops the onion browning, because the acid and water hold the temperature down.

Pico de gallo is the canonical case and serrano is the pepper it is properly made with. Raw tomato is sweet, acidic and watery, and serrano gives it a clean immediate heat without adding bulk — its thin walls mean a fine dice disappears into the mixture where diced jalapeño would read as pieces of pepper.

How: Finely diced raw into pico de gallo with onion and coriander leaf; Simmered with tomatillos for a salsa verde

Add alongside: Onion, Coriander leaf, Lemon

• Cut out the pale pith to reduce the heat. Removing only the seeds achieves very little, since the capsaicin is in the placental tissue.

Salt does two separate things to a tomato and both are worth knowing. It draws water out osmotically, which concentrates what is left and is why salted tomatoes sit in their own juice; and it sharpens the perception of the acidity and sweetness already there, which is why an unsalted tomato tastes flat even when it is ripe. Salting in advance and salting at the table produce noticeably different results from the same fruit.

How: Salted twenty minutes ahead for a salad, and the juice used rather than drained; Added early to a cooked sauce, where it draws water and speeds reduction

Add alongside: Basil, Garlic, Black pepper

• Salting a sauce before it reduces is the commonest way to oversalt one. Salt does not evaporate, so the seasoning concentrates in exact proportion to the water lost.

The base of West African pepper stews and of jollof: blended raw with tomato, onion and sometimes red pepper into the mixture everything else is built on. The tomato acidity and the chilli fruit are doing the same job from two directions.

Add alongside: Onion, Garlic, Ginger

The standard Mexican table salsa is roasted tomato or tomatillo blended with árbol, and the pairing works because the chilli brings heat and almost nothing else — the tomato supplies the body, acidity and sweetness, and the chilli supplies the burn without muddying them. A larger, sweeter chilli in the same place makes a different and heavier sauce.

How: Salsa de chile de árbol; With roasted tomato and garlic

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Guajillo

• Toast the pods for seconds rather than minutes. Thin pods scorch fast and burnt chilli turns the whole salsa acrid.

The cooked table salsa this chilli exists for. Roasted tomato brings sweetness and acidity, and cascabel brings a nutty savoury depth that the sweeter dried chillies would smother — which is why a salsa built on cascabel tastes savoury where an ancho one tastes rich.

How: Toasted and blended into a cooked tomato salsa; With roasted garlic and onion

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin, Guajillo

• Strain after blending. The tough skin does not break down.

A slowly reduced tomato sauce is acidic and one-dimensional on its own. Bay is the standard corrective across the northern Mediterranean, and it works because it contributes length rather than a competing flavour — which is also why it is so rarely credited.

Add alongside: Black pepper, Garlic, Oregano

Both are fruits of the same family and their sweetness and acidity are complementary. Paprika deepens the colour of a tomato base and adds body without adding acidity.

Add alongside: Garlic, Cumin

Tomato and za’atar is a standard Levantine salad combination, and it is a relative of the Italian tomato-and-oregano pairing rather than a coincidence — these are close species doing the same job. The Levantine herb is drier and less sweet, which suits a raw tomato better than a cooked one.

How: On a raw tomato and cucumber salad; With olive oil over grilled tomatoes

Add alongside: Onion, Lemon, Sumac

Tomato is already one of the richest ordinary sources of free glutamate, which is why a ripe one tastes savoury rather than merely sweet and acidic. Adding MSG pushes further along an axis the ingredient is already on, so it lands as more tomato rather than as something added — the clearest demonstration of what the seasoning actually does.

How: A pinch in a long-cooked tomato sauce; In a seasoning for tinned tomatoes, which carry less glutamate than ripe fresh ones

Add alongside: Garlic, Basil, Oregano

• It cannot make an underripe tomato taste ripe. It amplifies what is there and adds nothing.