Pasta with a Sauce of Tomato and Homemade Tonno sott’Olio
Though it cooks for only 15 minutes, this tomato sauce gets loads of flavor from both the tonno and the olio of your marinated tuna. But you don’t want just to boil the tuna and tomatoes together: it is essential to add the fish, the oil, and all the other ingredients to the big skillet at the right time. The technique of skillet sauces, and how to finish pasta and sauce together, is explained in depth on pages 89 to 93. For this chunky sauce, I recommend a short dried pasta with lots of nooks and crannies, like cavatelli or campanelle or conchiglie. These will catch some tuna for you with each bite, so you don’t end up with all the tuna swimming in the bottom of your bowl.
Recipe information
Yield
for 1 pound of pasta, serving 6
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Lift a few chunks of tuna from the oil and hold them over a bowl (don’t wipe or drain them—drips of oil are fine). With your fingers, break the chunks into flaky bits, 3/4 inch wide or so, to get 4 cups total.
Step 2
Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and start cooking your pasta shortly after you’ve started the sauce.
Step 3
Pour 1/3 cup of the marinating oil into a 14-inch skillet, scatter in the onion, and set over medium-high heat. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt, and cook, stirring, for 1 1/2 minutes or so, until the onion is sizzling. Clear one side of the skillet and drop in the capers, more or less according to taste, and stir to toast them in the hot spot for 1 1/2 minutes, then stir and cook with the onion for another minute.
Step 4
Drop in the flaked tuna and cook, still over medium-high heat, for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle on another 1/4 teaspoon salt and the oregano. Let the tuna caramelize lightly but not darken. (If the pan seems very dry, add another tablespoon or two of oil.) Drop peperoncino, to taste, into a hot spot, and toast for a minute, then stir in with the other ingredients.
Step 5
Pour the crushed tomatoes and juices into the pan; slosh the tomato container with a cup or so of boiling pasta water and pour that in too. Now stir in 2 more tablespoons of tuna-marinating oil, and bring the sauce to an active bubbling boil.
Step 6
Cook for 10 minutes or more, at the same time as the pasta. Lift the pasta from the pot while it is still slightly undercooked, and drop it into the skillet of simmering sauce. Toss and cook pasta and sauce together until the pasta is fully cooked and the sauce coats it well and is not soupy. Remove from the heat, and toss pasta with the parsley; drizzle over another tablespoon or two of tuna-marinating oil, and toss again.
Step 7
Serve immediately in warm bowls.
