Thread by @almostconverge

I'm going to do a cooking thread about the humble aubergine salad. Or the posh aubergine salad, depending on where you're from. Unlike in the UK, they're a staple food in the Middle East, the Balkans, all the way up to Transylvania.

The reason?

The Ottoman Empire.

First of all, let's stick them in the oven, preferably at around 170C. You can try a higher setting too. Either way, be warned that they are prone to exploding, so you might want to put some foil or a tray on the shelf below.

Ideally you'd put them straight on the charcoal at a barbecue but this is the UK in September, and it's pissing it down outside. Some brave souls also do it on the hob, but that's crazy talk. Anyway, while they're cooking, let's go back to the Ottomans.

They were, after all, responsible for taking this fruit from its ancestral lands of India and introducing it to everyone they conquered.

"Yeah, sorry for all the killing and subjugation, but take this vaguely suggestive vegetable as an apology."

So much so that in Hungarian the two words used for it are "padlizsán" (cognate with the Turkish "patlıcan"), or "törökparadicsom", literally meaning "Turkish tomato". (Which is rather peculiar, given that tomatoes were probably introduced to Hungary by the Ottomans too.)

While musing about history, make sure you turn the aubergines every now and again (don't forget oven gloves!), and they're ready when they're soft from all directions, like the Everton defence at set-pieces.

In the meantime let's make something not entirely unlike mayonnaise.

Finely chop a small onion and let it sit with a bit of salt, then put in a bowl a bit of mustard and an egg yolk. Mine's terribly pale, but you have to take what you get. Carefully add the oil, dropwise at first and all that jazz. When done, we can mix in the onions too.

If you're vegan, don't stress out over getting vegan mayo, just skip the previous step and mix the onion and the oil directly into the salad at the end to make it smooth and shiny. It's fine and just as traditional.

Now that our aubergines look saggy and deflated (like Nigel Farage's scrotum), and were left to cool a bit (unlike Nigel Farage's scrotum), it's peeling time. This could get messy because there's water inside.

That's why I switched to a board that can catch the juices.

And we've arrived to the point where philistines completely ruin this dish. You need to purée the aubergines but you MUST NEVER USE A BLENDER, or even a knife!

Okay, you can use a knife to cut it into largish chunks but the actual mashing must be done with a blunt instrument. They've got special wooden knives in Transylvania for this (the stories about vampires are fake news) but I don't, so a spatula will have to do.

There are various beliefs about metal touching the aubergine oxidising it.

I don't know if that's true but this definitely is: if you chop up the fibers with a sharp blade, the result will have the consistency of snot, which is not a pleasant texture, whatever the flavour.

All that's left is to dump the purée into the mayo and flavour it with salt and lemon juice. You can spread it on bread, pita or your chest if you're feeling kinky. You can garnish it with tomatoes and peppers.

Putting different coloured peppers on your nipples is a nice touch.

This is one of those dishes with no single recipe, in fact even within our family there are several. Don't be afraid to experiment: some add garlic or sour cream, some omit the onion and/or the mayo and just use oil, whatever works for you.

Just don't use a blender.

Seriously