Don't Sweat the Aubergine

you’re going to cook the spinach and reheat it later, my advice is not to follow injunctions to refresh it in cold water, because that process always seems to annul the flavour; instead, shorten the initial cooking, to allow for the cooking that the spinach will continue to undergo before it cools down.
Tomatoes
    The term ‘salad tomatoes’, as used by greengrocers, is almost always a lie. Those hard, orange things, acidic but otherwise tasteless, are not happy additions to a cold plate; and they’re not worth cooking either. Plumper, vine tomatoes are a better bet, although the message that the vine is meant to convey – that the tomatoes have ripened in the sunshine – is probably also a con. They sometimes have the texture of soggy blotting paper, perhaps because they have been refrigerated; but, with a boost from other ingredients, they can form the basis of a reasonable sauce.
    Deseeding tomatoes is one of the jobs that separates the professional cook from the rest of us. Most recipes involving tomatoes tell you to skin and deseed them. These writers have access to better tomatoes than the ones I get hold of: after I’ve deseeded one, there’s not much left. They are also prepared to discard the acidity of the juice in favour of the sweetness of the flesh; but I like the balance between those tastes. You could scrape the juice and seeds into a sieve, returning the juice to the flesh; are you that fussy about tomato seeds?
    Deseeding is worth doing if you don’t want the juices to soak other ingredients: when you’re making certain salads, for example, or sandwiches. Bring a pan of water to the boil, turn off the heat, and drop in the tomatoes for 20 seconds. Drain, and cool them with cold water. The skins should come away easily. Cut the tomatoes in half, and scrape out the seeds and juice.
    However, I like Nigel Slater’s throw-it-all-in method of making tomato sauce (from
Appetite
). I have adapted it slightly to include vinegar and sugar: even the best tomatoes benefit from an injection of extra acidity and sweetness. Tomato paste, to give a greater concentration of flavour, is optional: judge for yourself how much your fresh or canned tomatoes need this assistance.
    Simmering the sauce thickens it, of course; it also mellows the flavour.
TOMATO SAUCE 1
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2 to 3
    Finely chop a clove of garlic, and soften it for a minute or so in 1 tbsp olive oil in a heavy saucepan. Add 1 dstsp white wine vinegar and 1 dstsp tomato paste, and cook this mixture for a minute; then throw in 6 roughly chopped, medium-sized tomatoes, a pinch or two of sugar, and a little salt. Cook gently until the tomatoes have broken down and the sauce is gloopy: maybe 30 minutes or more. The skins are not worth eating. You can remove them by passing the sauce through a food mill or a sieve. Check the seasoning. Add herbs if you like: some torn-up basil, or some oregano.
TOMATO SAUCE 2
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2 to 3
    Follow the procedure for sauce 1, but with a 400g can of tomatoes and their juice. Once they’re simmering, you can break them up with a wooden spoon or mash them with a potato masher. If you want a smooth texture, put the cooked sauce through the food mill.
TOMATO SAUCE 3
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2 to 3
    Put the roughly chopped tomatoes, or the can of tomatoes and their juice, into a saucepan, and simmer with a pinch of salt until thick. Pass the sauce through a food mill or a sieve if you like. Warm through again, take off the heat, and add 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and a clove of garlic, crushed with some salt. Add any other herbs and seasonings you like.
    The fruity olive oil and the fresh garlic will of course be much more prominent in this sauce than in the other two. So you need good olive oil, and good garlic. You also need to be prepared to carry the evidence of what you’ve been eating on your breath.
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VARIATIONS
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    Soften a chopped onion after you’ve softened the garlic. Add a whizzed dried chilli or two before adding the tomatoes; or add whole dried chillies to the sauce as it cooks, and remove them before serving. Add 1 tsp harissa ( see here ) to the sauce as it cooks.
    Gently fry cubes of pancetta first, then add the garlic, and onion as well, if you want it.
    For a puttanesca sauce for pasta, soften half a small tin of anchovies with the oil and garlic, add dried chilli if you like , and proceed with the tomato sauce as normal. When the sauce is nearly