Main dish

Tuna, Cavolo Nero and Tomato Pasta recipe

Name: Tuna, Cavolo Nero and Tomato Pasta
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 2
Ingredients: 160g tuna in olive oil; 4 cloves of garlic, chopped; 250g good quality ripe cherry tomatoes, halved; 1 tsp red wine vinegar; 150g cavolo nero, stalks removed; 160g wholewheat penne pasta; salt and pepper; a small squeeze of fresh lemon juice; handful of pitted olives (green or black, stir in at the end); 1 tbsp toasted pine nuts (to finish)

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Wholewheat pasta with tuna and kale in a light cherry tomato sauce. Probably my most cooked dish. If you're able to use ventresca tuna (it's expensive) it will take this dish to a whole new level.

Prep10m
Cook20m
Total30m

fish italian pasta

Wholewheat pasta with tuna, cavolo nero and tomatoes

I’m a fan of all varieties of tinned tuna but especially the kind that comes in olive oil, which makes a wonderful pasta sauce when combined with good quality cherry tomatoes and plenty of garlic. Adding a leafy green like cavolo nero improves things even more and this is one of those rare sauces that goes well with wholewheat pasta.

We’ve been eating this dish on a weekly basis for ages. It’s a good end of the week dinner when most of the fresh veg has been used up.

I buy tomatoes and cavolo nero regularly, freezing the cavolo nero straightaway and waiting for the tomatoes to ripen over the course of the week. The rest of the ingredients come from the cupboard and the whole dish takes no more than 25 minutes to cook. It feels virtuous but doesn’t taste it; the tomato sauce is light and sweet with bites of rich, flaky tuna, all tied together with a big hit of garlic, starchy pasta water and a squeeze of lemon.

Notes

Cavolo nero freezes brilliantly if you’re not going to use it straightaway. Wash the leaves, strip out the stalks* and keep the leaves whole rather than chopping them. Squash into a bag or container and place in the freezer. To cook, put the whole, frozen leaves into boiling water for a minute then scoop out, drain and chop, then add to a pan to sauté. It’s much easier to fish whole leaves out of the boiling water than chopped up ones.

*I used to use a knife to remove cavolo nero stalks but then I saw Jamie Oliver hold the base of a stalk in one hand and use the other hand to strip the leaves from base to tip, which is much more efficient.

Recipe

Tuna, Cavolo Nero and Tomato Pasta

Prep10m
Cook20m
Total30m

Serves: 2

Ingredients

Pasta

160g tuna in olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
250g good quality ripe cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tsp red wine vinegar
150g cavolo nero, stalks removed
160g wholewheat penne pasta
salt and pepper
a small squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Optional extras

handful of pitted olives (green or black, stir in at the end)
1 tbsp toasted pine nuts (to finish)

Method

Place a medium saucepan over a medium heat and fill with boiled, salted water. This will be used to blanch the cavolo nero and then to cook the pasta.
Place a large frying pan over a low to medium heat and add all of the olive oil from a 160g tin of tuna along with 4 chopped garlic cloves. Fry until the garlic starts to colour then add 250g of halved cherry tomatoes and 1 teaspoon of red wine vinegar.
While the tomatoes are cooking, blanch 200g of cavolo nero leaves in the saucepan with the boiling water for 1 minute, then remove with a slotted spoon and drain in a colander. Allow to cool for a few minutes then squeeze out as much water as you can (it doesn’t matter if some is left), transfer to a chopping board, roughly chop the leaves and add them to the pan with the tomatoes. Squash the tomatoes a little to release more of their juice into the sauce.
Cook 160g of pasta according to the instructions on the packet, reducing the time by 1-2 minutes so that the pasta is al dente. Once the pasta is cooked scoop out a mug of the pasta water. Drain the pasta and add it to the tomato pan, adding a little of the pasta water to loosen the sauce.
Add the tuna to the pasta, stirring gently so that the tuna doesn’t break up too much, then taste and season with salt and pepper. The tuna doesn't need to be cooked, just warmed up. Add more pasta water if the sauce looks dry then turn off the heat under the saucepan.
Transfer to warm plates, squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over each plate and eat immediately.