Recently, I’ve cooked up kedgeree for dinner a couple of times, based on this Rick Stein recipe from the BBC Good Food site. It is the kind of recipe that doesn’t need too much precision in the quantities and is even quite forgiving of the ingredients and, having already taken various liberties based on what I actually had available, I think I’m pretty much ready to give it another go without looking at the source.

I think I’d start by gathering my spices. Stein calls for bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cardomon and a small amount of tumeric. I think next time I might drop the cinnamon and crush up the cardomon seeds rather than just splitting the pods. I will possibly also add some cumin (we’re working rather slowly through a very large bag of it) and put the salt in at this stage rather than reserving it for later. I’d also assemble the other ingredients – 2-3 eggs, some fish that can be flaked up (skinless, boneless fillets are ideal) and some kind of green, leafy veg. Parsley is often suggested but I used some frozen tree spinach, harvested from the allotment earlier this year, which worked well to give green flecks in the final dish. Butter is also needed (50g but ‘some’ would be sufficient) along with an onion, basmati rice and stock. Stein has 450g rice to 1 litre of stock; I normally work out how much stock I have and then weigh out just under half as much rice.

Time to cook! Melt the butter and drop in the onion, cut to a fairly fine dice. The onion wants to soften but not burn and then, after about five minutes, the spices can be added. If I’m being time efficient I’ll probably also have my eggs started by then – hard boiled for eight minutes. Once the spices have cooked into the butter for a minute or so, add the rice, coating it with the spiced butter, and follow with the stock. Bring that to the boil, stir to avoid sticking, then turn the heat down very low and cover, cooking for twelve minutes. Soon the eggs will be done. They can be lifted out and placed in cold water to quickly cool and the fish can go into the already hot water the eggs were cooked in.

The fish only needs about four minutes so, before the rice is done, there should be time to peel and chop the eggs, drain and flake the fish and prepare any spinach, parsley or other green veg. When the rice is cooked, all of that can be added and stirred in, keeping over the heat for another couple of minutes. Finally, serve, perhaps with a bit of fresh lemon (visual garnish and for the bright acidity).