Aubergine Lasagna

For me, there are always two (related) issues to consider when baking lasagna: how much sauce to make, and how large a baking dish to use. That's why, when preparing this one, I took careful notes of all the process. This recipe serves 4 people, with plenty of leftovers. Here it goes.

For the tomato sauce:

• four 800g (net weight) tins of whole tomatoes, packed in juice
  
• 2 large onions, diced
  
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 dried thai chillies, minced
  
• 2 bay leaves
• salt and olive oil

This takes awhile to cook, and can be prepared in advance, so start early. In a large pot, heat some olive oil. When it's hot, add the bay leafs, garlic and chillies. When the garilc is golden, add the onions and fry slowly until golden. Then, start addind the tomatoes and the packing juice. Add the tomatoes one by one, crushing them with your hands and making sure you discard any hard bits. Bring the sauce to a boil, add some salt and perhaps a bit more olive oil. Bring the heat to its lowest setting and let the sauce simmer for as long as you can. Say, an hour. Stir the sauce frequently to prevent burning.


The aubergine:

Get 2 kilos of aubergine - perhaps 5 medium ones - wash them, dry them, and cut the tops. Slice them lenghtwise into 1cm thick slices. Frying them is a mess. They soak a lot of oil and then you need to let them drain overnight. And the resulting lasagna is always too oily. Here's a better solution: arrange the aubergine slices on a silicone mat and drizzle a bit of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Put the silicone mat in a 180C oven, middle rack, heat from top and bottom, fan on. Once the upper side begins to gain some colour, turn the slices, season with salt and pepper, and drizzle a bit more olive oil. When they are soft and cooked through, move them to a bowl that you then cover with a plate so that the aubergine sweats and softens a bit more. You will have to do this in several batches as the slices cannot overlap.

Assembling the lasagna and baking it.

You will need

• 500g of lasagna sheets - the pre-cooked kind works really well
• 2 mozzarella balls, thinly sliced
  
• 2 cups of grated parmesan, the best quality you can afford
• one 13x9x2 inch Pyrex baking dish

Start by spreading a thin layer of sauce on the baking dish. Then, a layer of lasagna sheets, making sure they overlap a bit. More sauce, a layer of aubergine slices, followed by the mozzarella. Sauce, lasagna sheets, sauce, more aubergine, sauce, lasagna sheets and finish with a layer of sauce. Sprinkle the parmesan on top and on to the middle rack of the oven it goes. Set it at 180C, firstly with the heat coming only from below, and then after 20 minutes or so switch to top and bottom heat. The lasagna should be ready in 30-35 minutes. Let it rest for 15 minutes or so before serving: it's really hot and the flavours need to meld.

The mozzarella is clearly optional. You may or may not enjoy its presence. You can also sprinkle parmigiano between some of the layers, but for that you need quite a bit more cheese.