Tuna Puttanesca Beans
Everything comes out of a tin or a jar, and eight minutes later it tastes like it took an hour.
Why it works
Starting the garlic and anchovies in cold oil over gentle heat lets them infuse as the pan comes up, instead of scorching the moment they land. The tuna goes in off the heat and gets folded once — stir it twice and it shreds into the sauce and disappears. The penne cooks alongside in salted water and lands in the pan a minute early, so it finishes in the sauce and drinks some of it.
Method
- Fill and boil the kettle, tip it into a large pan, salt heavily and return it to the boil. Add the penne and cook a minute under the packet time, about 10 minutes. Keep a mugful of the water back before you drain it.
- Meanwhile, put the oil, garlic, anchovies and chilli into a cold frying pan and set it over medium heat. Cook 2 minutes as it warms, pressing the anchovies until they collapse and the garlic sizzles pale gold.
- Add both lots of tomatoes, the capers, olives and oregano. Simmer hard 5 minutes, until the cherry tomatoes burst under the back of a spoon and the sauce pulls away from the side of the pan when you push it.
- Stir in the beans with a splash of water ladled from the pasta pan and warm through for 2 minutes, so they take on the sauce without breaking up, then fold the spinach through in handfuls until it collapses.
- Drain the penne and tip it into the sauce — or the sauce into the pasta pan, if your frying pan is already full. Toss 1 minute over low heat, loosening with pasta water until every tube is coated.
- Take the pan off the heat. Flake the tuna over the top in large pieces and fold it through once, no more. Finish with parsley, a good squeeze of lemon and black pepper. It needs no salt — the anchovies, capers and olives have done that job.
For the toddler
There is no unsalting this one — the anchovies, capers and olives are the seasoning. Before step 3, warm a spoonful of the tinned tomatoes in a small pan with a little oil, add a few butter beans crushed with a fork and some penne cut short, and flake in a little tuna. Keep the olives and capers off their plate, and if an olive strays, take out the stone and quarter it lengthways.
How the toddler notes workChef’s notes
Tinned sardines or mackerel in place of tuna. Cannellini or chickpeas for the butter beans.
Buy pitted olives, though torn olives off the stone taste better.
Chicory and radicchio in a mustard dressing, or bread rubbed with a cut tomato and salted.
Excellent cold, straight from the fridge, with another squeeze of lemon. Keeps 3 days chilled.