Wednesday 27 April 2011

Sharing is Caring

I received an email from a relative over the holiday inviting me to a sort-of chain-letter recipe group. I send person 1 a recipe, then forward the letter on to five people and they send me a recipe back etc.
So I decided to share with you all my recipe for my BELOVED tuna-lemon pasta.

Holly’s Tuna Lemon Pasta

I ADORE this dish and it usually takes only 15/20 minutes to cook. This makes enough sauce for about two people, with left-overs for me to have seconds  I’m writing this from memory as I got rid of the recipe long ago so please excuse my poorly measured out amounts. If you want it to feed more people, add more pasta and increase the sauce amounts accordingly.

You will need:
2 x Tin of tuna in sunflower oil
1 x Double cream, a standard size blue elmea works fine (I think that’s 250ml but can’t remember)
1 x Lemon
Dried Pasta (however much you would normally make for two people)

PASTA:
Get the pasta on the boil in a pan.

Use a frying or other large round pan to make ‘the sauce’, it’s important that the pan surface area is large rather than deep.
SAUCE:
Pour the double cream into the sauce pan, place it on a medium heat to warm through, use a zester to take some of the rind off the lemon and allow it to mix with the cream in the pan.
Add some fresh or dried parsley (just a pinch) –STIR- Once the sauce is warm;
Squeeze half a lemon into the cream – stir rapidly to avoid curdling-
You should now see the cream thickening up.

(feel free to squeeze the other half of the lemon into the sauce, I do, but this is just my preference as I like the sauce tangy, you’ll be best to taste and experiment with this before adding it to the pasta for what you prefer)

Open the tins of tuna, drain the oil of one in the sink and drain a generous amount of the other’s oil into the creamy sauce. (approx. 2-3tbsp)
Stir well. *taste to see if you want more lemon adding*
When the pasta is cooked, drain, rinse and return to the pasta pan.
Pour both tins of tuna over the pasta followed by the sauce. Stir it through but try not to break the tuna up too much.
Serve. (and in my husbands case, add cheese)

The pasta should taste fishy with a lemon tang, if it’s not lemony enough when you try it, add more lemon juice next time. You can always miss the lemon zest out and simply use bottled lemon juice instead, but I find you have to use far more and it lacks the punch that a fresh lemon gives.

Please note the addition of tuna oil is my adaptation of the original recipe which called for anchovy oil to be added. I couldn’t find any at my supermarket and tuna oil works nicely and is already available when making this recipe (so less waste).

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do, it’s quick, easy and very yummy.

3 comments:

  1. I'll definitely give this a shot -- I've done something similar using the canned salmon and a garlic-flavored pasta and sauce, but I loves me some tuna!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hopefully it will taste good :) the lemon is really to taste I like it tangy. D likes it delicately flavoured

    ReplyDelete
  3. @ Hoody - and you should share your recipe for weenie delight. I haven't had that in a while.

    ReplyDelete