This should be enough for some eight people at least. You will need 1.5 kilos of aubergines, the small ones are better. Then a lot of tomato sauce. I do it with the whole tomatoes in tin, you will need some 3 big tins. The sauce should not be done with any onion or garlic, just olive oil, salt and a lot of fresh basilikum. In general, basilikum: the more the better. Mozzarella, ideally di bufala. I used four or five. Cut in small, but not very small dices. Parmisan, a lot! At least half of a packet grated.

You start by putting the tomato sauce on: tomatoes, olive oil, basilikum and salt, and you simmer lively so that all of the water goes and you get the sauce. Keep and eye on it and stir it every now and then because it has a tendency to stick at the bottom. Also, half way through, you might want to add half a spoon of bicarbonate of soda and stir well to take some of the acidity away.

Then, essentially, you need to fry the aubergines. You should peel them and cut them in one centimeter thick slices right before putting them in the frying pan, so that they do not become black and bitter. There should be a lot of very hot oil in the pan. I use a mixture of maize and olive oil. The aubergine must become well golden, almost crunchy, but should not burn. When they are done, you put them on a dish on which there is a paper towel, you cover them with another paper towel and you press them a bit, so that they leave most of the oil. Then you move them to another dish, where you will do the pile of the fried aubergines, putting a paper towel in between every layer. You will need to change the paper towels in the first dish very often. You will need a lot of paper towels.

At a certain point, you will find that there are no more aubergines. You have fried them all. In the meantime, the sauce should be ready, so you can start putting things together. Before you start, switch the oven on at 180 degrees. You start with a layer of sauce, then aubergines, parmisan, basilikum, mozzarella. At every melanzani layers, you press down the layers so that there is no space left between them. The last layer should be tomato sauce and then a little bit of basilikum on top. The parmigiana is ready. Put it in for some 45 minutes than have a look how the situation is. I usually end up leaving it in almost an hour. You can also freeze the entire thing before or after cooking it and keep it for later or you can do it the day before and cook it right before the lunch/ dinner.