Don't Sweat the Aubergine

sauce.
Cabbage and other greens
    Overcooked cabbage is an evocative smell, but not in a good way. It conjures up the grimness of school and hospital corridors; of soggy vegetables sitting in puddles of water beside globs of gristly stew. Members of the cabbage family, sprouts particularly, must be the subjects of more phobias than any other foods.
    The phobias are worth exorcising. These vegetables have bright, crunchy, sometimes sharp, sometimes appealingly bitter flavours. They go superbly with bacon and other pork products, with anchovy, with cheese, and with oriental flavourings and spices. And they are cheap.
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HOW TO COOK IT
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    Except when making a stir-fry, I like to steam cabbage, mellowing its flavour. Strip off the tough outer leaves, trim the stalk, cut the cabbage in half, then cut each half in two. Trim off the white heart. Slice the cabbage, and wash the slices in a bowl of cold water (it makes them crisper). Put them in a steamer above boiling water for 3 minutes. If they’re ready, remove and toss with butter or oil and seasoning.
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VARIATIONS
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    Braise the quarters of cabbage in a covered pan with 1cm or so of water or stock and some butter. They might take about 15 minutes to soften. Watch that the cooking liquid doesn’t all evaporate. If there is liquid left at the end of the cooking time, uncover the pan and turn up the heat to evaporate it, and stir to coat the cabbage in the butter.
    Heat a wok or heavy frying pan, pour in a couple of tablespoons of sunflower, groundnut or vegetable oil, throw in some chopped garlic, then add the steamed cabbage slices, stirring quickly to coat. Add some oyster, soy or chilli sauce. Or add chopped chillies at the beginning, with the garlic, and/or finely chopped ginger.
Red cabbage
    Red cabbage is one member of the cabbage family that can withstand longer cooking. It is often braised with vinegar and apples, the acidity of which not only complements it in flavour, but also prevents it from losing its colouring.
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HOW TO COOK IT
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    Slice an onion and soften it in butter or sunflower oil, or a mixture, in a heavy casserole. Quarter the cabbage, cut out the white core, and slice it; wash the slices. Add it to the onions; add also 3 tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp brown or white sugar, 2 cloves, salt, and some nutmeg if you like. If you think that the mixture is too dry and that the cabbage is likely to catch, add a little orange juice, red wine or water. Stir well and warm up the mixture on the hob; then put the casserole into a gas mark 4/180°C oven for half an hour.
    Or cook it following the main instructions above, but with some acidic content to fix the colour. Or eat it raw, which is how I like it best – in a salad with rice, raisins softened in hot water and drained, soy and balsamic vinegar.
Sprouts
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HOW TO COOK THEM
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    Wash them, peel off the loose outer layers, and trim the bases; the popular practice of scoring crosses in the stalks is not necessary. If you have a lot of sprouts, you might find steaming inefficient. So boiling them is the answer; and the most efficient way to do that, even though it loses more nutrients, is with a lot of water. Bring it to the boil, add salt, then throw in the sprouts. Check with the point of a knife after 5 minutes; they should be tender but not soft. You could then toss them in a frying pan with oil and garlic, or simply with butter.
    Or: slice them and give them, from raw, the stir-fry treatment (see broccoli, here , and cabbage, here ). It’s also a good way to treat leftover sprouts.
Other greens
    They are all delicious if sliced and stir-fried (see the cabbage and broccoli variations, above). Pak choi has a lot of stalk; separate it from the leaf, chop it into 10p-sized pieces, and put it into the wok or frying pan a minute or so before you add the green bits.
    The leaves and stalks of Swiss chard have to be cooked separately, because the stalks can take a while to soften. Cut the stalks into fork-sized pieces (in other words, ones of the right size to put in your mouth), and put them into a pan with 1cm boiling, lightly salted water and a knob of butter. Cover and simmer. Check after 10 minutes; they may need longer. When nearly ready, uncover the pan and turn up the heat to evaporate the liquid and coat the stalks in butter. Meanwhile, slice and chop the leaves; steam them. They should take about 5 minutes. Grease a gratin dish with a little clarified butter or oil (see Gratin dauphinois, here