Don't Sweat the Aubergine

pot (142ml – for 2) of double cream. Top with grated Parmesan, and put under the grill until bubbling and golden. You could add 1 tsp mustard and/or a pinch of nutmeg to the cream.
    Another way to do it: fry some lardons (cubes of pancetta or bacon) in a little oil, until their fat runs. Remove to the gratin dish, leaving behind the fat. Fry the halved chicory in the fat very gently, turning occasionally, for 10 to 15 minutes, until quite tender. Put the chicory in the gratin dish. Make a cheese sauce ( see here ), and pour it over. Put in a gas mark 6/200°C oven for about 15 minutes, or until bubbling. For a substantial dish for two: 100g lardons, 4 chicories and 300ml cheese sauce.
Chillies
    They’re so often disappointing. Recipes usually advise you to deseed them, on the fallacious grounds that the seeds are hot; in fact, it’s the white membrane that is the hottest part of a chilli. Often the flesh that’s left behind once you’ve discarded the seeds and membrane has no more kick than that of a bell pepper. If mildness is what you’re after, look for the larger varieties; small chillies, and the squat ones that might be habaneros or Scotch bonnets, should be more powerful. If you dare, it’s worth tasting them before use.
    I buy tiny dried red chillies, and use them a lot, particularly in pasta sauces. They’re impossible to ‘crumble’, as recipes instruct; I whizz them in a small electric food mill.
    The Encona brand of chilli sauce is good. Don’t use it in a marinade, as a cheat’s jerk sauce, though: it turns bitter when cooked.
Courgettes
    Boiled or steamed, courgettes are mushy and dull; but, if you sauté them, they can disgorge so much water that they boil anyway. So, according to some recipes, they require pre- salting, to draw out this water. An easier solution is to sauté them on a high heat, so that the water vaporizes quickly. Buy small courgettes: they usually have more flavour, and they are less likely to flood your frying pan.
    If you want a firm, crunchy texture, cook courgette batons, not rounds. Cut a small courgette about three times horizontally; cut these pieces once or twice vertically; at right angles to these cuts, make another vertical cut.
    The anchovy/garlic/chilli/cream sauce for pasta (see broccoli and cauliflower, above) is good with courgettes, too. Or, keep it simple (for 2):
    Soften a chopped clove of garlic in 1 tbsp olive oil, add batons or rounds of 4 small courgettes, and sauté over a medium to high heat, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes, or until tender. Serve, accompanied by grated Parmesan, with spaghetti or spaghettini. Add a chopped, dried chilli or two to the cooked courgettes if you like. Instead of the Parmesan, try breadcrumbs: whizz up a couple of slices of bread, crusts removed, in a food processor or small electric mill, toss with 1 tbsp olive oil, put on a baking tray in a gas mark 4/180°C oven for 10 minutes, until brown. Toss gently with the pasta and courgettes.
    Cut courgettes into pieces of whatever size you like, season them and coat with olive oil, put in a roasting pan and cook at gas mark 6/200°C. Stir them around a bit after 15 minutes. They should be tender in about 25 minutes. Cook them with cubed, oiled and salted aubergine, and stir the vegetables into couscous ( see here ). Or include them in a ratatouille ( see here ). Or toss them with pasta.
Cucumber
    Pre-salting, as I’ve said elsewhere, is usually a bothersome and unnecessary process. But it does do good things to a cucumber. Peel the cucumber, cut it however you like, put the pieces in a colander, and lightly salt the layers. After half an hour, pat the pieces dry with paper towels. Put in a bowl, and stir in a little vinegar (1 dstsp for half a cucumber). You should find that this salad has a lovely balance of sweetness, saltiness and acidity.
    Pre-salting is also worthwhile if you’re going to make cucumber with yoghurt (tzatziki, or cacik), because it prevents the salad from becoming watery.
    For 4
    1/2 cucumber
    1 pot (200g) Greek yoghurt
    1 garlic clove, crushed with a little salt or, for a milder taste, finely chopped ( see here )
    Pepper (you’re not likely to need more salt)
    4 fresh mint leaves, chopped
    Slice or chop the cucumber however you like, salt it and pat dry as above, and mix with the other ingredients.
    Most cucumbers have tough skins, which I prefer to peel.
Fennel
    Fennel responds well to the kind of braising you would give to meat –