Sautéed vegetables in broth

These are among the most useful recipes in this book, because they can serve as side dishes, main courses (some are vegetarian, some not), or with a little added liquid, as soups. Yet they are easy and fast, and contain no stock. Or more accurately they create their own stock, from the vegetables, from meat, or from seafood, beans, and herbs.

To a large extent, these are peasant, from-the-garden dishes, and more about shopping and chopping than about cooking. We begin with a variety of vegetables, simply cooked with olive oil and water, and go on to add meat, beans, herbs, and a seafood—the vegetables being the building block for everything else.