Light your grill or set your eggplants directly over a gas flame one at a time, turning them slowly with tongs so the fire can find every side. You are looking for skin that is fully blackened, blistered, dark as the bottom of a cast iron pan — this takes 12 to 15 minutes and you must not hurry it. Listen for the crackling, smell the char rising up toward you. When the flesh inside has gone completely soft — press it, a fork slides through with no resistance — pull it off the heat and let it rest on a plate. The fire is where this dish lives. Everything else is just assembly.

When the eggplant is cool enough that you can hold it without cursing, slice it open lengthwise and scoop the soft flesh away from the blackened skin with a spoon. Discard the skin — it has done its work. Take your knife and chop the flesh on the board, rough and honest, not smooth, not pureed. You want texture that reminds you this was once a vegetable. About two cups of soft smoky pulp is what you are after.

Take three or four cloves of garlic — I say four, always four — and mince them very finely. Then crush that mince with a pinch of coarse salt under the flat of your knife, working it back and forth until it becomes almost a paste. This is how garlic dissolves into yogurt instead of floating through it. Fold it into the thick cold yogurt and taste — you will know immediately when it is alive.

Now bring the eggplant into the yogurt slowly, folding not beating — treat it like you are introducing two old friends who already know they will get along. Squeeze in your lemon juice and taste again. The acid should open everything up, and behind it you should still find the smoke sitting there quietly, waiting. Salt to your instinct. This is a dish that tells you when it is ready.

Spoon it onto a wide shallow plate and let it find its own shape — do not fuss with it. A thread of good olive oil if you like. Tear a generous handful of flat parsley over the top, chopped rough the way I chop everything, and finish with a pinch of red pepper flakes scattered across like an afterthought that was actually very deliberate. Let the plate rest a few minutes before it goes to the table. The flavours are still shaking hands.