Greenfeast. Nigel Slater

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      lime juice 100ml (about 2 limes)

      ginger 30g

      fish sauce 3 teaspoons

      palm sugar 4 teaspoons

      hot red chilli 1

      hot green chilli 1

      tamarind paste 4 teaspoons

      groundnut oil 2 tablespoons

      aubergines 300g

       For the apple yoghurt:

      mint leaves 12

      a small apple

      white wine vinegar 2 tablespoons

      natural yoghurt 200ml

      Put the lime juice into a mixing bowl. Peel and grate the ginger, stirring the resulting paste into the lime juice. Pour in the fish sauce, then stir in the palm sugar until dissolved.

      Finely chop the red and green chillies, removing the seeds if you wish, then add them to the marinade with the tamarind paste and groundnut oil, combining the ingredients thoroughly.

      Cut the aubergines in half lengthways, then into wedges as you might a melon. Now cut each wedge in half. Put the aubergines into the marinade, turn to coat and set aside for a good half hour. During this time they will soften a little.

      Make the apple yoghurt: finely chop the mint leaves and put them in a small mixing bowl. Grate the apple into the bowl, it can be as coarse or as fine as you wish, then stir in the white wine vinegar and yoghurt, cover and set aside.

      To cook the aubergines, heat a cast-iron griddle (and switch on the extractor). Place the aubergines on the griddle and leave to brown on the underside. Turn, loosening them from the griddle with a palette knife, and brown the other side. Keep the heat low to moderate, and make sure they are cooked right through – they must be fully tender.

      Serve the aubergines, hot from the griddle, with the apple yoghurt sauce.

      • Cut the aubergines in slices or wedges, as the fancy takes you. There will, I assure you, be much smoke, so switch on the extractor or open a window. Better still, cook them outside on the barbecue. Arm yourself with a palette knife to gently prise them from the bars of the griddle. I like to keep the heat no hotter than medium to give the aubergine time to cook through to the middle, a process you can speed up by covering the aubergines with an upturned metal bowl (or a lid, if your griddle has one). If you prefer, rather than the sour apple dressing, make a dressing of olive oil, lime juice and coriander leaves.

      • A twist of noodles, tossed with the merest splash of sesame oil, could be a suitable accompaniment here, as would long-grain rice, steamed and seasoned with black pepper and sesame seeds.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS, BROWN RICE, MISO

      The savour of miso. The homeliness of brown rice.

       Serves 2­–3

      brown sushi rice 190g

      Brussels sprouts 750g

      groundnut oil 2 tablespoons

      light miso paste 1 tablespoon

      Japanese pickles (tsukemono) 2 tablespoons

      Put the rice in a bowl, cover with warm water, then run your fingers through the grains. Drain, repeat, then tip into a saucepan, cover with 5cm of cold water and set aside for half an hour.

      Wash and trim the sprouts, then cut each in half. Bring the soaked rice to the boil in its soaking water, add half a teaspoon of salt, cover and lower the heat so the water simmers. Leave for thirty minutes or until the rice is approaching tenderness. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to rest for ten minutes before removing the lid.

      Warm the oil in a shallow pan. Toss the sprouts with the miso paste, then transfer to the hot oil, moving them round the pan as they become crisp and pale golden brown.

      Remove the lid from the rice, run a fork through the grains to separate them, then divide between two or three bowls. Spoon the miso sprouts into the rice and add some of the Japanese pickles.

      • Fried in a little oil, the miso paste forms a fine crust on the outside of the sprouts. Serve them as an accompaniment if you wish, but I like them as the star of the show, tucked into a bowl of sticky rice and scattered with salty Japanese pickles. I serve this as it is, but also as a side dish for slices of cold roast pork and its crackling. This is sticky rice, my favourite, but you don’t want it in lumps, so running the tines of a fork through the cooked grain is a good idea.

BURRATA, BEANS, TOMATOES

      Milky snow-white cheese. Toasted beans. Peppery basil.

       Serves 2

      garlic 3 cloves

      olive oil

      cannellini beans 1 × 400g can

      cherry tomatoes 250g

      basil leaves a handful

      burrata 2 × 250g balls

      Flatten the garlic cloves with the blade of a kitchen knife, then peel away the skins. Warm four tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow pan and add the garlic, letting it cook briefly over a moderate heat. Drain the cannellini beans.

      Cut the tomatoes in half, pour a little more oil into the pan, then add the tomatoes and the drained cannellini. Fry briefly, for four or five minutes, until the beans are starting to crisp a little.

      Tear the basil leaves and add to the beans, stirring them in gently, until they start to wilt. Divide the beans and tomatoes between two plates, add the burrata and trickle with olive oil.

      • The beans will crisp deliciously around the edges if you leave them to fry in the hot oil. Stirring them too often will cause them to break up as they develop their golden shell.

      • Cannellini beans are my first choice here, but butter beans are worth considering too. Green flageolet don’t seem to work quite as well, though I am not entirely sure why.

      • This is one of the lighter recipes in this volume, yet each time I make it, I am surprised by how satisfying it is.

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