You are famished and need something sustaining.

First of all, put on some woolly socks. Then, put some Basmati rice on to cook. White for choice.Oh: you're wondering about the socks, aren't you? Those were to make you feel sort of at home and cosy. Works for me. With a big bowl of hot rice.

This dinner is just for one!

Now, you can take this in one of two ways.

Going Indian

गोइंग इंडियन

 (That's my open bag of turmeric --haldi-- above.)

So, The rice is cooking. Remember not to boil the life out of it, but bring it to the boil and then down to the most gentle simmer you can imagine for about 12 minutes with no fiddling. After which time, you fork it up gently -- not attacking stirring with a spoon! While your rice is cooking, take a wok or a decent-sized frying pan and fry off two finely chopped cloves of garlic, a little piece of grated fresh ginger and half a chopped fresh red chilli. You just need a little film of sunflower oil in the pan for this. Swoosh the ingredients about until they smell nutty and roasted and then add a couple of teaspoons of cumin seeds, about a teaspoon of well crushed coriander seeds and a teaspoon of lightly crushed fennel seeds. Cook these off gently and then add about a teaspoon of turmeric. Cook carefully so as not to burn the turmeric.

Now, when the rice is done, drain it carefully, add it to the spices in the pan, turn the heat up high, having added another little dose of sunflower oil, and twist and turn it until the rice is well coated. Then, all you do is add a couple of teaspoons of garam masala, check for salt and pepper and top your rice with a generous blob of Greek yoghurt. You could, if you want extra piquancy, add a teaspoon of a chaat mix powder to the yoghurt. Chaat, if you have not been following me before, is a South Asian snack food, which might be savoury --such as a mixture of cubes of potato, onion and puffed rice-- or might be sweet -- such as a little fruit salad. The spice mixtures themselves are deeply savoury and my favourites will contain anardhana (green pomegranate powder) and/or amchoor (green mango powder). They are addictive. Try them. If you cannot get them locally, go here: www.spicesofindia.com

So there you have it. A straightforward and meatless supper. Enough to bolster you quickly. Are you still wearing your woolly socks? A kind of pilaf, I suppose, by the way.


Or how about this?


Going Chinese

While that same rice is cooking (and Basmati is not, of course, authentic, so you could use another - such as Jasmine rice or something else you like), fry in just a little sunflower oil a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, a little grated nut of fresh ginger and a good pinch of dried red chilli flakes. Then, add three chopped spring onions to the spices in your wok or frying pan and a handful of green peas, which I'll admit I just lob in from the freezer. Cook quickly and then add a couple of teaspoons of Chinese five spice powder and, for effect, perhaps a few star anise. So pretty.

When the rice is cooked, add it to the mixture in the pan, bring it to a high heat and then add a beaten egg to the mixture. Cook carefully, passionately and quickly (these three are not mutually exclusive) and, finally, add a sloosh or two of Kikoman soy sauce. I like this particular sauce because it's naturally brewed. And behold: it also turns out to be a Delia "CHEAT!" ingredient and, I notice, has been labelled as such in my local supermarket.

And there you are.

That wasn't hard was it?