The garden has turned a buttery yellow, the leaves of the fig and medlar, pear and plum, are mostly fallen now. Sweeping them up is a daily job involving a road-sweeper sized broom. A pleasure, actually. Before I pick up the brush, I put a tray of vegetables in the oven – scarlet peppers and fat courgettes, onions in thick segments and maybe an aubergine or two. They will roast, with olive oil, thyme leaves and cumin seeds, until soft and giving, their juices forming an impromptu dressing.
Sometimes, I will add golden raisins or pine kernels, toasted crumbs and crisped garlic or perhaps a trickle of balsamic vinegar or pomegranate molasses. As the days cool, I will introduce a little warmth in the form of harissa paste or smoked paprika, or add garlic, roasted and mashed to a paste and stirred into the juices.
This will be dinner, but also lunch the following day, when my roast vegetables will be eaten at room temperature, their juices soaking into a slice of thick, hot toast. This time, I accompanied my roast tomatoes and courgettes with an aubergine cream, the fruit’s roasted, silky flesh folded through thick yoghurt then given a nip with mint leaves.
On particularly wet days I have a craving for carbs, the sweet roots of swede and potatoes, sliced thinly and baked with vegetable stock, butter, thyme and mustard. This, as a side dish for sausages or for grilled black pudding, will be dinner throughout the winter. The juices, buttery and warm with mustard, are something for which I need a spoon, or perhaps some doorstop-style slices of sourdough bread.
These are dishes to bring me in from the garden and its endless autumn jobs, recipes with which to wave goodbye to the late autumn vegetables or to say hello to the new season’s winter boots.
Baked swede and potatoes
A good cold-weather side dish, this is one of those good-natured recipes that will stand and wait for you, coming to little harm, until you are ready. I rather think butter is essential with swedes (they need all the help they can get), but use olive oil if you prefer.
Serves 4 as a side dish. Ready in 90 minutes
potatoes 500g
swede 500g
garlic 3 cloves
butter 65g
grain mustard 2 heaped tsp
thyme leaves 2 tsp
vegetable stock 150ml
Peel or scrub the potatoes as you wish, then cut them into very thin slices. If you have mandolin then use that. Peel the swede and slice it as thinly as you can. Put both potato and swede slices into water to stop them browning.
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Peel and thinly slice the garlic. Over a moderate heat, melt the butter in a flameproof dish or sauté pan about 25cm in diameter and, when it starts to bubble, lower the heat and stir in the garlic. Cook for a good 5 minutes, stirring pretty much all the time until it is soft, fragrant and very pale gold. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the mustard and thyme leaves and several grinds of salt and pepper.
Drain the potato and swede slices, then put them into the pan, tossing them over and over in the mustardy butter, so each slice is lightly coated. Pour the stock over the top.
Bake for an hour until the layers of vegetables are completely tender (test with a metal skewer).
Baked autumn vegetables, aubergine cream
A mildly spicy, soft-textured vegetable dish, with a herb-flecked aubergine cream as accompaniment. There is plenty of juice here, spiked with harissa and pine kernels, and you may like to eat it with bread to sponge it up. Serves 4. Ready in 90 minutes
For the aubergine cream:
aubergines 2, large
olive oil
yoghurt 250g, thick and creamy
mint or coriander leaves a good handful
For the baked vegetables:
tomatoes 750g
courgettes 3, medium
peppers 2, red or orange
onion 1
olive oil 5 tbsp
thyme leaves 1 tbsp, chopped
ground cumin 1 tsp
harissa paste 3 tsp
pine kernels a handful
raisins a handful
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Cut the aubergines in half lengthways, then score the flesh with several deep gashes – this will help the olive oil and heat to penetrate the flesh – then put them in a roasting tin or baking dish and pour over a few generous glugs of olive oil. Bake for 45 minutes or so, until thoroughly soft. You should be able to crush the flesh with a fork easily.
Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes in half, unless they are very small, and put them in the roasting tin. Cut the courgettes into thick chunks and add to the tomatoes. Halve the peppers, pull out the seeds and core, then cut in half again. Peel and halve the onions, cut them into thick segments and add, with the peppers, to the roasting tin. Pour over 4 or 5 tbsp of olive oil and season with salt, the thyme and coarsely ground black pepper, then the ground cumin. Finally, toss everything together, making sure the vegetables are well coated with oil and seasonings.
Roast the vegetables for a good hour, or until they are soft and lightly browned.
While the vegetables are roasting, Now continue with the aubergine cream. Scrape the flesh from the skins into a mixing bowl. Mash to a coarse purée with a fork and stir in the yoghurt, a light seasoning of salt and black pepper and the mint or coriander leaves, then set aside.
Remove the vegetables to a shallow serving dish and keep warm. Place the roasting tin over a moderate heat and stir the harissa paste, pine kernels and raisins into the roasting juices. Let them come to the boil, then spoon over the roast vegetables and serve with the aubergine cream.
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