As you can – almost – see from the previous picture this is a beautiful match for the Keralan fish curry. But all you need to know is that it tastes as wonderful. This way of cooking rice is very low stress, and the rice will keep, with a lid firmly clamped on it, without going sticky or overcooked for quite a while, so you don’t need to live by the skin of your teeth.
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
250g basmati rice
half teaspoon turmeric
half teaspoon dried mint
juice and zest of 1 lemon
approx. 500ml water
half teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
1 tablespoon black mustard seeds
Choose a saucepan with a close-fitting lid, and heat the oil gently before adding the rice. Stir it around to get a good coating of oil and add the turmeric and mint, stirring to mix. Squeeze in the lemon juice (reserving the zest) and add the water, so that it covers the rice by a good couple of centimetres. Stir in the salt, put the lid on tightly, bring it to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and continue cooking very gently (on a heat diffuser if you’ve got one) with the lid on until all the water has been absorbed. This should take about 15 minutes. And if, when the rice has cooked, the pan is still a bit waterlogged, take it off the heat and replace the lid with a tea towel draped over to absorb the remaining water. It will sit quite happily like this if you need it to for about 30 minutes or even longer, and then you can fluff it with a fork, season it with some more salt if it needs it, and then turn the rice out into a bowl.
While the rice is cooking, toast the mustard seeds by heating them for a couple of minutes in a dry frying pan, then set aside. When you’ve turned the rice into its bowl, sprinkle these, along with the grated lemon zest, on top.