Preheat your oven Oven 180℃/350℉/Gas mark 4 if cooking straight away.

The sauce: Place the oil in the pan on a low heat and gently fry the garlic for a few minutes, without colouring.

Add the passata to the garlic pan, season with salt and pepper and add the herbs. Whilst it simmers on medium heat for about 45mins to 1 hour move to step 3. (, until reduced to a thick sauce. Set aside.

Frying the aubergines: I use two frying pans at the same time to get the job done quickly. If you feel like you are adding loads of oil, just use a little less and turn the heat down so they don't burn!

I fry them, get a bit of colour on each side, and then pop them under the grill to brown a little more and crack on with the next batch. If the weather is good I do them all on the BBQ instead.

Assembly. Get all your elements in one place. Sauce, aubergines, mozzarella and parmesan. (As a guide, I did 4 layers with mozzarella on.)

Put 2 more spoonfuls of sauce onto the aubergines and spread out. Break up around 60g (half of 1 ball) into chunks and place on the sauce, and then sprinkle around 10g of Parmesan on top.

Repeat the process until you are left with a final layer of aubergines. It is better to have a complete covering of aubergines for the top layer, so if you feel like you are running for this, use fewer in one of the middle layers (like I did!).

When you have your aubergines on top, pour on the rest of the tomato sauce to make a thick final layer and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan cheese to complete. Feel free to grate more.

Cook in the oven for 1 hr. Oven 180℃/350℉/Gas mark 4. (Or cook later!) If you feel the top is browning too quickly, pop a piece of tin foil on top and take it off 10 minutes from the end. The parmigiana will benefit from resting for 15 minutes after it comes out of the oven….as will the roof of your mouth! Is great reheated the next day (or cold) in fact sometimes even nicer!