Don't Sweat the Aubergine

and complete submergence of the meat are not essential.
    If I buy a whole chicken for a stew or a braise (or for grilling), I get my butcher to joint it. The task takes him about a minute; it takes me at least a quarter of an hour of effortful hacking.
    For reasons explained above (see Roast chicken, here , and What meat?, see here ), the lean breast meat cooks quickly and then dries out even more quickly; give the breasts just 15 minutes or so in the pot. Because you cannot interrupt the cooking of chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, you might prefer to use thighs and drumsticks only for that dish.
    2 • Browning reactions . What you’re browning is mostly skin; but that will contribute to the flavour. The skin protects the flesh, which on contact with high heat dries out and toughens unappetizingly.
Pork stew
    Most cuts of pork are too lean to stew or braise successfully. The exceptions include belly and spare rib chops – not to be confused with spare ribs ( see here ).
A BELLY PORK BRAISE
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 4
    900g boneless belly pork, cubed
    6 onions, roughly chopped
    Olive oil
    As many garlic cloves as you like
    2 lemons
    Salt
    Sear the meat as in the lamb and beef stew recipe above ( see here ). Soften the onion in the oil (1 to 2 tbsp) in a casserole dish. Add the garlic and the lemon, cut into quarters, and tip in the pork. Season.
    Or: simply toss all the ingredients together, as in the simple stews, above ( see here ). Any pork exposed to the air in the casserole will gradually brown. Turn it as it does so.
    Cook, covered, in a gas mark 1/140°C oven for 2 to 3 hours, or until the meat is meltingly tender. You can turn down the dial once the contents of the casserole are simmering. No degreasing and skimming here: the fattiness, cut through with lemon juice, is an important component of the dish. Serve it with something plain: rice and a green salad, perhaps.
A SPARE RIB PORK BRAISE
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 2
    2 spare rib chops
    1 tbsp olive oil
    1/2 glass white wine
    Chicken stock
    Salt
    Small pot (142ml) double cream
    1 tsp mustard
    Sear the chops as in the lamb and beef stew recipe above ( see here ). Transfer to a casserole; throw in the wine and a ladleful of stock. Add a little salt. Put, covered, in a gas mark 1/140°C oven, or simmer very gently on the hob, for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the meat is tender. (If the pork is not entirely submerged, turn it halfway through cooking.) Remove the meat from the casserole, and pour the liquid into a saucepan; return the meat to the casserole, putting the lid back on. Reduce the liquid over a high heat until it is a little syrupy, then add cream and mustard, and bubble until it thickens. Check the seasoning. Pour back over the meat, and serve.
CASSOULET
    Most cassoulet recipes are highly elaborate. Richard Olney in
The French Menu Cookbook
gives 30 ingredients and 4 stages of cooking. We home cooks, in love with cassoulet but too lazy, or busy, to prepare the restaurant-standard version, call again in our defence what Elizabeth David said about boeuf Bourguignon ( see here ): in essence, that individual cooks interpret provincial dishes in their own ways. You’re not sullying the spirit of the dish if you simplify it – quite the opposite.
    More complicated and, I suppose, authentic recipes include lamb or mutton as well as pork. Three kinds of meat (and meat fat) are one too many for me.
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 6
    500g dried haricot beans
    6 slices boneless pork belly, rind removed
    2 onions, 1 of them studded with 2 cloves, the other chopped
    4 garlic cloves, 1 of them chopped
    6 Toulouse, Cumberland or other coarse sausages
    6 portions of confit of goose, or confit of duck 1
    1 tbsp or more of the fat from the goose or the duck
    3 tomatoes, skinned and chopped ( see here )
    Chicken stock
    Salt, herbs
    Breadcrumbs
    Soak the beans in cold water overnight, drain them, cover them in fresh water to a height about 4cm above the top of the beans, bring to the boil, skim off the scum that rises, add the clove-studded onion with the 3 unpeeled cloves of garlic and the rind from the pork belly, and simmer, partly covered. It’s hard to predict how long the beans will take to soften; start checking after an hour, and top up the water if the topmost beans are in danger of being exposed. When they are nearly cooked, uncover the pan and allow the liquid to reduce and thicken – it will be a little sludgy. There is going to be another cooking