My two tips for perfect aubergine parmigiana

In the middle of an unpredictable Indian summer, here is a recipe from sultry southern Italy which is suitable for the changing seasons. While aubergine parmigiana (or parmigiana di melanzane) was born of hot Italian summers, it is also perfect for autumn, as the days shorten and darken. There is inherent comfort in the hot, almost-melting aubergine, covered in a rich sauce and blankets of cheese.

The name is possibly a red herring, possibly not. Aubergine parmigiana is most associated with Naples, and is also beloved in Sicily and Calabria. Many have found it hard to reconcile a dish that supposedly comes from the southern regions – where aubergines were most readily grown – with it being named after a northern Italian cheese. Several food historians have put forward mishearings or mispronunciations to explain the contradiction.

According to Mary Taylor Simetti, who specialises in Sicilian cuisine, the ‘parmigiana’ apparently does not refer to the parmesan in the dish – which is one of the reasons I feel happy to scatter vast quantities of mozzarella throughout the layers – but instead is a bastardisation of the Sicilian word ‘palmigiana’ which means shutters, referring to the overlapping and interleafing of the aubergine as you create the layers. The Sicilians, she tells us, struggle to pronounce the ‘l’, and often substitute it with an ‘r’. It’s a charming, slightly romantic story, but historian Clifford Wright takes more of an Occam’s razor approach: by the 14th century, parmesan cheese was widely traded throughout Italy, so it’s entirely plausible that it could have lent its name to the dish.

When it comes to the culinary elements, these are far more straightforward. In fact, it’s a pretty minimalist dish: aubergines, tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan, all layered together until they meld and transform into something greater than the sum of their parts, the cheese clinging to the aubergine and melting in the lower layers, while bubbling and bronzing on top.