‘Split Belly’ (Baked Eggplant Stuffed with Beef)

As a chef, I often get asked: ‘What would be your last meal?’ I always reply: ‘My grandmother’s karnıyarık ’. She put something in there that I have never been able to replicate.

The name ‘split belly’ is not a reference to what this dish will do to you, but to what you need to do to the eggplant. This dish first appeared in the nineteenth century on palace menus, but now it’s a lokanta favourite.

There’s a mistaken belief that the next recipe<