Greek-Style Rice

Start with the patty mix, because it's the part with a waiting game built in. Eggs and flour here aren't for richness — they're the glue holding shredded cabbage, chickpeas and halloumi together once heat hits them. The fifteen-minute rest matters for a reason you can feel with your hands: raw flour straight out of the bag is thirsty, and cabbage, even finely shredded, is still mostly water in cell walls that haven't broken down yet. Give it quarter of an hour and the flour pulls in that moisture, the mixture tightens, and when you shape a golf-ball patty it holds its dome instead of oozing sideways on the tray. Rush that step and you'll know it in the oven — flat, cracked discs instead of rounds.

The chickpeas get pulsed, not pureed, because texture is the whole point. Blitz them to paste and you lose the bite that tells your mouth "this is a patty, not a pancake." A few seconds of pulsing, checking as you go, leaves some whole and some broken — that's the texture you want, not a smooth hummus consistency. If you don't own a food processor, a fork and some elbow grease against the side of a bowl does the same coarse job, just slower; patience again, not equipment, is the ingredient.

Halloumi earns its place because it doesn't melt into nothing the way most cheeses do under heat — it holds shape, gives a salty, slightly squeaky counterpoint inside the patty. If you can't find it, a firm feta diced small does a similar job, though it'll crumble more than hold a cube shape; a vegetarian hard cheese that doesn't collapse under heat is really the criterion, halloumi's just the easiest example in a UK supermarket.

Oiling your hands before shaping isn't a fussy chef habit — it's what stops the mixture sticking to your palms and tearing apart as you try to round it off. A domestic oven fan setting at 175°C is gentle enough that the patties cook through without the outside hardening before the inside sets, and turning them partway stops one side drying out while the other stays pale — in a home oven, heat rarely comes evenly from all sides, so you compensate by moving the food, not by trusting the dial.

For the rice itself: onion, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes go in first over a heat where the onion turns translucent and then takes on a little colour at the edges — that's the sugars starting to caramelise, which is where the savoury depth comes from, not from the stock alone. Courgette goes in grated coarsely rather than diced because it needs to more or less dissolve into the sauce as it simmers, adding moisture and a little sweetness without you noticing distinct pieces of courgette on the spoon.

The canned tomatoes and stock together give the rice enough liquid to cook through without turning to risotto — basmati drinks roughly its own volume again in liquid, swelling and elongating as it goes from brittle to properly tender; you'll feel the difference biting a grain rather than needing a timer to tell you. Once the lid's on, the job of the stove is just to hold a gentle simmer, not a rolling boil — boil hard and the liquid evaporates faster than the rice can absorb it evenly, leaving you with scorched bottom and crunchy top at the same time.

Stir the spinach in right at the end, off direct heat if you can manage it, because spinach collapses in under a minute — any longer and it turns from bright green to a dull khaki and loses the fresh, slightly mineral bite that's doing real work against the sweetness of the tomato sauce. Feta crumbled on top rather than stirred in stays distinct — salty little pockets instead of melting into the sauce, since feta, unlike halloumi, doesn't really melt, it just softens and breaks. If feta isn't to hand, any firm, salty brined cheese that crumbles rather than stretches will do the same job — a hard goat's cheese, for instance.

Olives and fresh oregano scattered at the very end are there for contrast, not cooking — oregano loses its oil and its smell fast once it hits heat, so it goes on raw, torn or whole, right before the dish reaches the table.