THE ART OF FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER

Try autumnal leafy greens with a sweet and sour twist to give your seasonal veg some zing

I’ve been eating leafy greens with everything for the past couple of weeks. A bunch of rainbow chard bought on Sunday – its stems ruby red and pumpkin-coloured – has brightened up all manner of meals, first finding its way into a bake with cream, nutmeg and Parmesan to have with a roast chicken, then sauteed with garlic and chilli to eat with the following day’s leftovers. Cabbage and cavolo nero have been in heavy rotation too, with handfuls chopped and wilted through a pan of beans, fried with eggs or steamed to eat with sausages, leeks and buttery mash.

Summer veg gets all the hype, but when there are greens this good around, I feel rather glad of the drop in temperature. I love a ripe tomato and a perfectly crisp green bean as much as the next person, but I think we forget sometimes that the winter months aren’t all about starchy roots – there is freshness to be found too.

It can be tempting to just keep things simple when it comes to winter greens (and a bit of buttered cabbage with plenty of salt and pepper can be a very lovely thing), but I wonder if they aren’t at their best with a helping hand from something sour and a little sweetness. I like giving things like chard, cabbage, spinach and cavolo the agrodolce treatment with a few sultanas or a little honey and some red wine vinegar. It’s great with fish (particularly something oily like mackerel) and particularly good with pasta.

This dish is a kind of riff on the Sicilian classic pasta con le sarde, which traditionally features fresh sardines, fennel and saffron along with plump sultanas. I used tinned sardines in olive oil, removed the stems from a few cavolo nero leaves, finely chopped and sauteed them with celery, celery seeds and red onion, then shredded the leaves and cooked them quickly so they retained some bite. A splash of thick balsamic adds even more tangy sweetness. A bit of finely chopped parsley would be nice, as would a few toasted breadcrumbs. And if you’re not a sardine fan, you could melt a couple of anchovies through the onion and celery for a background salty hum with less fishiness.