Tahira Nasim’s Pilau Rice

You have not forgotten our Tahira. Trust me on this. Once you've met our Tahira you will never forget her. The circumstances of our first meeting are odd enough - at a concert in the Usher Hall during the Edinburgh Festival, since you ask - but things got odder still.

She slagged me off for my recipe for sag aloo, but made amends by suggesting a cookery session. I then asked her to contribute a dahl recipe. We eventually did get to cook together. Her dahl is sensational. She also produced today's dish. I had contributed my sag aloo and had undercooked the potatoes. And my chuck it and chance it curry, which can sometimes be spectacularly good, just wasn't. So I was feeling slightly inferior in my own kitchen, a rare turn of events.

Never mind. T is a force of nature, feisty, funny and not the most politically correct of individuals. For many of us, pilau rice is the bland coloured stuff for which Indian restaurants will charge you a bit more than plain boiled. Tahira snorts. It should be cooked in seasoned broth, and often has the addition of veg, hence her request as to whether I had a tin of chickpeas in the cupboard. (Of course.)

Pilau Rice with Chickpeas

Ingredients

4 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 medium onion, very finely sliced; 2 cloves garlic, crushed; piece of ginger, about 5cm, very finely chopped, or grated;  1 tbsp ground cumin; 3 black cardamoms (best to use seeds inside as more flavoursome but can just chuck in whole);  1 cinnamon stick or tsp ground cinnamon; 1 tbsp of whole black peppercorns; 6 - 8 cloves; 1 level tsp salt;  1 can of chickpeas drained and rinsed; juice of 1 lemon; 1 cup of basmati rice (wash and soak in water about 2 hours for best results); 1 cup boiled water.

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Heat the oil in a decent sized wide bottomed pan. Add in the sliced onion. Brown in a medium heat till golden/dark but not burnt. (I was in charge of the onions. Are they browned enough? I asked. No, she said. Get them as brown as me.)

Add all the spices and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add the chickpeas. Cook for a further 5 minutes.

Drain the water from rice and add it to the pan along with the boiled water. Let the water evaporate until only a small quantity remains in the pan. Add the lemon juice.

Then put a lid on turn down the heat to low and let it steam for 8 minutes. The rice should be perfectly fluffy and done. Check but if the rice doesn’t break  between your fingers it needs a little more cooking. Do not over cook. Remember the grains at the bottom of the pan will be more well done than those on top.

Take off the heat once done and turn it over gently.  Do not over stir as this will break the rice.

Hey presto! All done. Enjoy with a curry of choice or just on its own as a light meal. The chickpeas can be substituted with frozen small diced veg instead as an alternative. Or make plain if desired.

With Ms Nasim, every day is a school day. I have to say that we did have enough to feed the proverbial five thousand, but very good it was. Note that the photo is a stock image, not one of Tahira's dish, but quite similar.

Depending on local WiFi and my mood, Tom Cooks! may be away for a couple of weeks.