Don't Sweat the Aubergine

best ones are Puy or other green lentils, followed by brown. The split, disc-like, green-brown ones have a more muddy taste, but are fine for soup. Red and yellow ones turn quickly to mush, and are good for dal.
    You can put green lentils into a large pan of boiling water, cooking them for 20 to 30 minutes, after which they should be tender but still holding their shape. Then drain. But the liquid you are pouring away, or perhaps saving to use with soup, contains nutrients and flavour. The alternative is to try to use an amount of liquid that will leave the lentils, when cooked, moist but not drowned.
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HOW TO COOK THEM
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    Because lentils cook quickly, you don’t need to soak them. They do need washing, though, and picking through: some packets will contain discoloured and damaged ones, as well as extraneous material including, sometimes, small stones. For 4 people, chop an onion and finely chop a clove of garlic; soften the garlic in 2 tbsp olive oil for a minute; add the onion and soften for 10 minutes. Add the lentils, cover by about 1cm with cold water, add salt (for remarks about whether salt will toughen the lentils, see Dried beans, see here ), and bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat, and cover the pan. Check on progress after 10 minutes or so: lentils absorb a lot of water, and you may need to add more. But don’t add more than the topmost layer will need to continue cooking. As the lentils near softness, uncover the pan. What you hope is that most of the liquid will have evaporated at the moment when the lentils have softened but have not broken down.
    Alternatively, cover the washed lentils with water and cook as above, but soften the garlic and the onion in a separate pan, perhaps for 20 minutes, until they are golden and sweet. Stir the garlic and onion into the lentils just before serving. It depends what you want: a garlicky, oniony flavour that is integral to the dish; or one that is part of it but distinct.
    I have to admit that what you might call the ‘absorption method’, above, is hard to get right. I have taken to simmering lentils in salted water so that I can drain them when they’re tender but not mushy. For a salad, I add them to a vinaigrette, perhaps with chopped spring onions.
DAL
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2
    Use red or yellow lentils (200g). Wash them, and remove any grit and extraneous material.
    For ideas about spice mixes, see here and here . Or cheat and get out an Indian or Thai curry paste; I use about one and a half times the quantity suggested on the bottle. Soften a clove of chopped garlic in butter, or butter mixed with sunflower oil (or, if you have it, ghee). Add a chopped onion, and cook for 10 minutes or so, until softened. Add spices (toast whole seeds such as cumin and coriander in a dry pan, and grind them in a mill or grinder; use 1 tsp of the spices you want to be most prominent, and less of any others), or curry paste, and cook for a further minute. Add lentils, and, for a rich dish, a small carton of coconut cream (or 1 tbsp creamed coconut, which comes in a block), plus water to cover. Careful with the salt: the paste may be salty.
    Cook gently, covered; be careful that the coconut cream (you could also use a tin of coconut milk) does not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. The lentils usually soften in 20 minutes or less. Uncover the pan, turning up the heat if necessary, to reduce the dal to a thick, gloopy consistency. If you like, add chopped fresh chillies and coriander leaves.
    Most recipes tell you to cook the lentils and the onion/spice mixture apart. I simmer the lentils, covered, with turmeric, chilli pepper, and salt, with frequent checks on the level of the liquid. Meanwhile, I make the onion/spice mixture as above. When the lentils are soft, and thick and gloopy, I tip them into the mixture, stirring everything around for a minute or two.
Peppers
    Raw slices of pepper in salads are indigestible, I find – the ripe red and yellow ones just as much as the green. The flesh is watery; but it’s the skins that are disagreeable. They remain so after cooking in a stew as well. I like to get rid of them.
    There are three ways to burn and loosen the skin: on a skewer turned above a gas flame; under a grill; and in the oven (see below). You could follow the usual recommendation of putting the charred peppers in a bowl and stretching some cling film over the top; but I’ve never found that this steaming makes much difference. Scrape off the