What spices go with rice

Paella, Persian chelow, biryani and risotto alla Milanese are all built on it. Rice is neutral and absorbent, so it takes both the colour and the aroma completely, and the visual result is a large part of the point.

How: Bloomed in warm water and stirred through part of the rice for a two-tone finish

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Yoghurt, Cinnamon (Ceylon)

Biryani and pulao, where the pod perfumes the whole pot from a single addition. Rice is a blank absorbent base and picks up smoke readily, which is why the spice is so noticeable here despite the small quantity.

How: Whole in the water or stock for a pulao; In the fat with bay and cassia before the rice goes in

Add alongside: Cassia, Bay leaf, Cumin

The pairing annatto is best known for outside Mexico. Rice is pale and absorbent and takes colour completely, and Puerto Rican and Filipino rice dishes are expected to be orange — a pale pot reads as wrong however it tastes.

How: Achiote oil stirred into the rice at the start; Ground annatto with sazón in arroz con gandules

Add alongside: Cumin, Coriander seed, Garlic

• Warm the seeds in fat rather than adding them to water — the pigment is fat-soluble and the seeds themselves are never eaten.

Biryani and pulao are where shahi jeera earns its name. Rice is a blank absorbent base that shows a delicate aromatic clearly, and black cumin was chosen over ordinary cumin in Mughlai cooking precisely because it perfumes without asserting itself the way cumin would.

How: Bloomed in ghee before the rice goes in; Whole in the pot for a biryani

Add alongside: Cassia, Green cardamom, Bay leaf

• A quarter teaspoon does the work of a teaspoon of ordinary cumin, and the slender seed scorches faster.

The everyday yellow rice of South Asia and the Caribbean, and the affordable answer where saffron is the expensive one. It colours reliably and adds an earthiness saffron does not — they are not the same dish.

Add alongside: Cumin, Green cardamom, Bay leaf

• Turmeric is not a saffron substitute in flavour, only in colour. Recipes that say otherwise are describing the look of the pot.

Jollof in West Africa and rice and peas in the Caribbean, and in both the whole-pod technique matters: an intact scotch bonnet simmers in the pot and comes out before serving, giving heat and aroma without a single fierce mouthful.

How: A whole pod simmered with the rice and lifted out before it bursts

Add alongside: Onion, Thyme, Allspice

The one pairing in this dataset where the mechanism is not an analogy. Pandan’s dominant aroma compound, 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, is the same compound that gives basmati and jasmine rice their scent, and it is present in the leaf at far higher concentration. A knotted leaf in the pot therefore does not merely sit alongside the rice — it supplies more of exactly what fragrant rice already smells of, which is why ordinary long-grain rice cooked with pandan reads as a better grade of rice.

How: A knotted leaf cooked in the rice pot and removed before serving; In coconut rice and nasi lemak

Add alongside: Lemongrass, Curry leaf

• Knot the leaf. An intact leaf laid in whole releases very little, because the aroma is held in cells that need rupturing.

The use safflower is actually for. Rice takes up the water-soluble yellow completely and evenly, and because the spice contributes essentially no flavour the dish is coloured without being seasoned — which is the point, and the reason it is worth having.

How: Steeped in warm water and stirred through cooking rice; Added to the cooking liquid at the start

Add alongside: Turmeric, Cinnamon (Ceylon), Cumin

• Steep in water rather than fat: the useful pigments are water-soluble, unlike annatto’s.

Biryani and pulao take their colour partly from this, and the mechanism is the same as everywhere else Kashmiri chilli appears: bloomed in ghee, the pigment carries through the fat and stains the grains without adding heat a rice dish could not carry.

Add alongside: Green cardamom, Bay leaf, Cumin

Bruised pods cooked with rice perfume the whole pot and are easily picked out. Standard in biryani, pulao and Persian rice.

Add alongside: Cinnamon (Ceylon), Saffron, Bay leaf