Let’s hope you live in a soft water area…. since I live on Hampshire chalk I am not so lucky. Well, at least not for making jasmine rice, but there’s always a bright side. In Keigo Higashino’s Salvation of a Saint ‘detective Galileo’ (aka Manabu Yukawa), who is a physicist, points out that the chalk particles in hard water combine with sushi (or Jasmine) rice to make it dry (undesirable). However, this is a good thing for beef stews as the chalk particles help to emulsify the fat with the stock and prevent it separating. Serve with sea bass fillets.

Jasmine rice is NOT scented with jasmine… it just happens to release when cooked a scent reminiscent of jasmine – its own natural odour.

In any case – this is how I cook jasmine rice. You don’t need to add the lemon but I think if gives it an honest, fresh taste.

Allow ½ cup – 180g per person so, for two you’ll need a cup of rice, a stock cube and a small lemon:

1. Rinse a cup of jasmine rice in cold water using a sieve until it runs clear
2. Boil two cups of water, pour it into a pyrex jug and add a teaspoon of chicken stock – or a stock cube. Dissolve the stock
3. Add the rice and the water with the stock to a saucepan and bring to the boil
4. Reduce it to a simmer, cover the saucepan with a lid, and continue to cook until the water has been absorbed – just over ten minutes
5. Zest the lemon
6. Take it off the heat, add the juice of the lemon, fluff the rice up with a fork, and replace the lid – leave for about five minutes
7. Serve garnished with the lemon zest