With a knife, cut slices 1 cm thick, without peeling the eggplant, and place them scattered on a paper towel. Season the eggplant slices with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and let them sit for about 10 minutes.

Chop the tomatoes, but first cut them in half and with a spoon, remove the core with seeds and use only the pulp from the tomatoes. Cut the mozzarella first in two and then slice it into not too thick slices, calculate so that it reaches one piece on all the eggplant slices. Bacon, if you have it whole or sliced, cut it into cubes. Grate the cheddar cheese on the large grater.

Place the eggplant slices next to each other on the baking tray, without having to put baking paper. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil over each slice and divide the bacon cubes on them. Distribute the entire amount of chopped tomatoes over the smoked bacon and place on each slice of eggplant a piece of mozzarella. On top, put the last ingredient, the grated cheddar cheese.

Preheat the oven to 200 C and bake the eggplant slices for about twenty minutes, until the cheddar cheese is melted and has a copper-coloured crust.

I recommend serving fried eggplants while they are hot, as an appetizer, as such or with a slice of fresh bread and with a glass of cold beer.