Nigel Slater’s sticky rice with courgettes and pickles recipe

A Japanese-style dish that’s quick and easy

The recipe

Wash 180g of sushi rice in a bowl filled with warm water, then pour off the water and repeat. Tip the rice into a medium-sized saucepan, pour in 300ml of water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat so that the water is simmering, add half a teaspoon of salt, then cover the saucepan with a lid and leave to cook for 15 minutes.

Wash and trim 150g of small courgettes, then, using a vegetable peeler, remove slices of each courgette in long, thin shavings. Toss them in a little sesame oil and season lightly with salt. Roughly chop 75g of assorted Japanese pickled vegetables. Shred 20g of pickled ginger. Roughly chop a handful of basil and coriander leaves.

When the rice is cooked, remove the saucepan from the heat and leave it to rest for 5 minutes, still covered by its lid. Then remove the lid and gently fold the chopped pickles, basil, coriander and raw courgettes into the rice with a fork. Stir in a tablespoon of dried seaweed flakes, a tablespoon of rice vinegar and season to taste. Serves 2.

The trick

If the rice has stuck to the bottom of the pan during cooking, empty out the rice, then pour a little water in to the pan, bring it to the boil and leave it for a minute or two. The rice will then be easy to remove from the pan.

The twist

The shavings of courgettes soften in the residual heat of the cooked rice. You could stir in a few other good ingredients instead. Try chopped tomatoes marinated briefly in olive oil and basil, French beans, lightly cooked and cut into short lengths, or, better still, thin batons of cucumber tossed in a little rice-wine vinegar and a few nigella seeds.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater