Don't Sweat the Aubergine

liquid, remove it to a pan, boil it until it turns syrupy, and pour it back over the rhubarb.
    Sorry to be vague about the quantity of sugar. Say you have 600g rhubarb (by the way, get rid of the leaves, which are reputed to be poisonous): add 2 tbsp sugar. It probably won’t be enough. But it’s better to start with too little, and to add more as your taste dictates, than to start with too much, when your only way of tempering the sweetness will be to add more rhubarb.
Fruit fools
    Stew rhubarb or gooseberries as in the basic rhubarb recipe (above), but without the butter. Drain off the liquid into a pan; put the rhubarb or gooseberries into a sieve held over the same pan, and crush them with a wooden spoon. Boil all the liquid in the pan until it is syrupy; re-combine it with the rhubarb or gooseberries. Check for sweetness. Put the fruit into the fridge, to acquire a holding, slushy consistency.
    You can give the same treatment to redcurrants and blackcurrants.
    About 600g fruit (for stoned fruit, that’s the weight when the stones are removed) should be good for 6 people. How much cream you use is a matter of taste; I suggest a similar volume to that of the fruit – 400ml, say. Pour the cream – double or whipping – into a bowl, and whisk with a balloon whisk, until it thickens but before it goes firm. It should have a coating, but still liquid, consistency. Combine it with the fruit, and chill again.
    Strawberries and raspberries don’t want cooking. Pour sugar on them, bash them up with a fork, check the sweetness, and combine with the thickened cream. Chill.
FRUIT CRUMBLE
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HOW TO MAKE IT
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    For 6
    125g butter
    200g plain flour
    75g caster or demerara sugar
    More sugar for the fruit
    600g unstoned fruit (if you’re using plums or damsons, you’ll probably need about 1kg; if you’re using apples such as Bramleys, about 900g)
    This is one job for which I always use a food processor. Cut the butter into pieces, and whizz them with the flour briefly; the mixture should resemble fine breadcrumbs. Then stir in the sugar.
    Or: work the butter into the flour with your fingertips. Some people find it satisfying.
    Apple crumble . Most crumble recipes underestimate the amount of softening you need to give to the fruit before you bury it in crumble. If fruit goes into the oven crunchy, it will probably emerge crunchy.
    Peel the apples, halve and quarter them, take out the cores, and cut the flesh into wedges. You can stop them going brown if you drop them in water into which you’ve squeezed some lemon juice. In a heavy saucepan, melt enough butter to coat the pan bottom, add the apples (damp from their soaking), and cook them gently, with the pan covered.
    When there’s a bit of liquid in the pan, you can add some sugar – start with a tablespoon, and then taste – without fear of caramelizing it.
    You may find that your apples give off a good deal of liquid; uncover the pan to allow it to evaporate, and continue to cook, stirring regularly. But others may need the help of a little additional water. They’ll take 15 to 20 minutes to soften. You could add a little cinnamon and nutmeg.
    If you can’t find Bramleys, try other varieties with a bit of acidic character to them: Cox’s, for example.
    Tip the cooked apples, having checked that they’re sweet enough, into a pie dish or other ovenproof dish. Cover with the crumble. The quantity of flour, butter and sugar given above is only a guide, and may be over-generous; don’t use it all if it threatens to overwhelm the fruit. You want a light, buttery layer of crunchy crumbs, not a thick, dry layer of compacted stodge.
    Put into a gas mark 5/190°C oven for about 30 minutes, or until the top of the crumble is golden.
    Apple and blackberry is good (in a 600g to 300g ratio, say). Poach the blackberries ( see here ), and add them, with a reduced and thickened syrup, to the cooked apples.
    Or apple and rhubarb; again, cooked separately (see Rhubarb, here ). Try equal volumes of each fruit, weighing about 900g in total.
    Plum crumble . Cut 1kg of plums – or more if you like – in half, and remove the stones. Simmer in syrup ( see here ), in a wide, covered pan, for about 2 minutes on each side; they should just be starting to tenderize.
    Transfer them in a slotted spoon to an oven dish; reduce the syrup to a thick liquid, and pour it over the fruit. Cover with the crumble, and bake as above. You don’t need much syrup: just enough, say, to come a