Delia's Brown Rice Salad

This is from Delia Smith's Frugal Food, published in 1976, when we were in the depths of a recession... On my copy, the top cover line reads: "Bestselling author of ONE IS FUN!" Ha! Delia always used to insist on "freshly milled black pepper" – pepper mills and pepper corns were exciting novelties back in the olden days. She's right, of course, it is much tastier than ready ground pepper.

1 teacup or mug long-grain brown rice
3 or 4 tbsps vinaigrette dressing
3 spring onions, very finely chopped
2 inches cucumber, finely chopped
2 large tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
1/2 red or green pepper, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 red dessert apple, chopped but not peeled
1 oz currants
1 oz walnuts, finely chopped
Salt and freshly milled black pepper

Cook the rice, then empty it into a salad bowl, fluff it up with a fork and pour the dressin gover while it's still hot. Allow it to cool and then mix in all the other ingredients.