Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for preserving summer fruit and vegetables

Preserve summer fruit and veg and, come autumn, you’ll still be enjoying aubergines in a confit, figs on giant pancakes, and watermelon with peppered chicken

Pickling, salting, fermenting and curingare just a few of the many ways humankind has learned to extend a food’s shelf life. I’m not one for goodbyes at the best of times, so happily this means I never really have to part with my favourite fruit and vegetables; instead, I get to enjoy them in a different guise. Whereas fresh produce needs very little doing to it, the art of preserving lends itself to bigger, louder, funkier flavours. The ingredients get to know each other in whatever controlled environment we’ve put them and, somehow, they transform into wonderfully intense spoonfuls of deliciousness. And that, I’d say, is a definite win.