One-pot chicken and rice

Serves four. About forty minutes, most of it unattended.

You will need: 2 cups long grain rice, 3 tablespoons sunflower oil, 500g chicken pieces, 2 onions, 3 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon each of cumin and turmeric, 4 cups water or stock, salt.

Rinse the rice in cold water until it runs clear, then leave it to drain. This is the step people skip and it is the difference between separate grains and a sticky pot.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan. Brown the chicken on both sides and lift it out. It does not need to cook through here; you are after colour, and colour is flavour.

Add the sliced onion to the same oil and cook it slowly until it is genuinely golden, not merely soft. This takes ten minutes and cannot be rushed on a high heat without burning the edges. Stir in the garlic and spices for a minute, until you can smell them.

Return the chicken, add the drained rice, pour over the water and season. Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat right down and cover. Fifteen minutes, no lifting the lid.

Take it off the heat and leave it covered for another ten. The rice finishes in its own steam, and this rest is what stops the bottom layer catching. Fork it through before serving.

Three ways to change it: a handful of roasted nuts and some raisins stirred in at the end turns it into something closer to a celebration dish; a chopped tomato added with the onion gives a softer, sweeter result; and a whole green chilli dropped in with the water lends heat without making it sharp.

Leftovers keep for two days in the fridge. Reheat with a splash of water and a lid on, not in an open pan, or the rice dries out.