Don't Sweat the Aubergine

effect of the salt is negligible by comparison with that of the high heat of the pan or grill, which drives liquid from the meat at a tremendous rate. That’s why a steak sizzles in the pan; that’s why it shrinks. If you’ve salted it, at least it will have a flavoursome crust.
    A soaking in brine, a solution of salt in water, will increase the tenderness and moistness of meat when it is cooked. Pork belly, brined for three days and then gently roasted, is meltingly soft and juicy ( see here ).
    Salt in cooking water hastens the softening of vegetables and reduces the loss of nutrients. You have to be careful: overcooked members of the cabbage family become rank, and green legumes go grey and flabby if they steam or poach for too long.
    Every cookery writer recommends sea salt (or rock salt) in preference to table salt. However, there have been tests in which experts have failed to distinguish between them. I think that I favour Maldon sea salt as a seasoning, even though I’m not confident that I could back up that recommendation by passing a salt-tasting test; I use table salt in cooking water – for pasta, for example.
Pepper
    I have been even vaguer in my advice about pepper than I have about salt. It’s up to you. Add it at the table, and you get the fresh pungency of the freshly ground grains; cooking gives a milder, integrated pepperiness. My one recommendation is not to add ground pepper to stocks or stews. It turns acrid after long simmering.
Oil
    On cooking, extra virgin olive oil loses the fragrance and fruitiness that make it stand out from the ordinary, refined stuff. But it’s so cheap these days – can it be genuine? – that I use it as an all-purpose oil anyway. In the text, I’ve written simply ‘olive oil’. If I had the money, I’d buy a standard brand for cooking and a fancy, estate-bottled one for salads. Sad to say, I don’t.
    I use olive oil for salads, for pasta sauces, and for any cooking that involves Mediterranean vegetables. For other purposes, I fry with sunflower oil. Vegetable oil is fine too. Cookery writers often recommend groundnut oil, which they reckon to be the oil that least adulterates the flavour of food; but it’s hard to find round our way.
    One of the more baffling of the instructions commonly appearing in cookery books is that you should heat oil, for searing meat or for stir-frying vegetables, until it is smoking. If it’s smoking, it’s degrading, and will have a degraded flavour. It may also be harmful: burnt materials are thought to be carcinogens.
    For frying at high temperatures, use vegetable, sunflower or groundnut oils, which have higher smoke points than does olive oil. Heat the pan first, so that the oil has only brief contact with it before you add the ingredients; otherwise, the oil is more likely to burn. When you can feel, by lowering your palm towards the pan surface, that the pan is hot, add the oil, swirl it around quickly, and add your meat or vegetables. Keep them at a lively, but not ferocious, sizzle.
    Sesame oil has a low smoke point. Don’t fry with it, unless you’re going to do so very gently; instead, add it to stir-fries at the end of cooking, as a flavouring.
Wine and other alcohol
    An enduring memory from
The Galloping Gourmet
, a hit TV show of the 1960s. Graham Kerr, the GG, is standing before a stewpot, brandishing a bottle. We need a little wine at this stage, he confides; then he starts pouring the bottle into the stew and, leeringly, doesn’t stop. Heady days.
    It was a time when the notion of alcohol in food seemed daringly sophisticated. Now, when it causes less of a frisson, we’re inclined to use alcohol more sparingly, in the knowledge that too much of it can throw the balance of flavours in a dish out of whack.
    Wine or other alcoholic drinks in cooked food taste overpoweringly raw and acidic unless they are reduced. Don’t add them to a dish just before serving. Typically, you use the drink to ‘deglaze’ – loosen the residues, in order to incorporate them in a sauce – a pan in which you’ve fried meat and/or vegetables; you let the liquid bubble for a minute or two before adding it, with other liquid, to a stewpot ( see here ), or you use it as the sauce for a sauté ( see here ). As it cooks, a good deal – though not all – of the alcohol evaporates; so do the volatile acids. The liquid becomes milder, and sweeter. Vinegar may be used in the same way, and also loses its rasping qualities after