As many of you already know, my very favourite way to eat is to place several dishes across the table alongside a pile of bread and last night was no exception. We enjoyed a couple of left over stuffed peppers from last week’s gallery menu – I don’t throw anything away, I merely repurpose it; luscious Santorini tomato keftedes with feta, mint and parsley; melitzanosalata, a traditional roasted aubergine dip highlighted with fresh lemon juice; salted Greek yoghurt with freshly chopped dill and peppery rocket leaves simply dressed with a mulberry molasses and elderflower vinaigrette. Here’s the recipe for the melitzanosalata, just remember to bake the aubergine in the oven first thing in the morning and forget about it for an hour. You can then pull everything together very quickly when you get home.

Ingredients

2 large aubergines
Half red onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
125ml extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for rubbing into aubergines
1 lemon, juiced
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
15g fresh parsley, finely chopped

How I make it

Heat an oven to 200C.

Prick the aubergines and rub them with olive oil, place on a baking tray and bake for 50-60 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

When cool, remove the soft smoky flesh from the skin and place it in a food processor (discard the skins obvs). Blend. Add the onion and garlic and blend again, slowly adding the olive oil at the same time.

Add the lemon juice and season to your taste. Finally, stir in the parsley.

Place into a pretty dish, drizzle with olive oil and garnish with an olive.