HEAD BLOG

Tuna and pasta is, for me, an utterly warming and indulgent meal. Usually I cook this mid-week and it does enough for two nights. Really I ought to cook it the night before I plan on eating it because it would benefit hugely from time to let the flavours to develop.

The idea for this comes as a mashup between the inspiration of Jamie Oliver and my son’s first pasta based meals that we did for him when he was weaning. I enjoyed “showing” him how best to stuff food into an eager mouth and developed a taste for the way his food was being prepared. Then I added chilli

So, for Tuna Pasta you will need:

• 1 x red onion
• 3 x tins of tuna (or jars)
• 1 x jar passata
• Flour
• Milk
• Butter
• Cheese (cheddar, grated)
• 1/3 pint vegetable stock
• Cinnamon
• Basil
• Chilli flakes
• Pasta (I use Penne)
• 1 x big ass saucepan

Dice your onion nice and fine (unless you like it big a chunky). Then set it a-softening in the pan care of a little oil. Add some chilli flakes to get the heat. Add some cinnamon and the stalks from the basil. I sometimes forget the basil and add a bit of paprika here instead, just to make it all fiery.

When the onion has softened, throw in the tuna. Remove from tins first. Then add the passata and give it a stir before adding the stock. It will be very liquidy but you want to reduce it down quite a bit so leave it alone.

Make a cheese sauce by melting some butter in a pan and mixing it with flour. You need a nice roux, not too floury and not too soft. Once that is done start adding milk bit by bit. This is just a standard white sauce and you don’t need too much of it but you may as well make a load and then freeze anything you don’t use.

Once the sauce has thickened, throw in the grated cheese and remove from the heat. The cheese will melt.

Add some of the sauce to the tuna mix. This is down to personal preference but maybe 200ml. Give it a stir and let it bubble more.

Cook your pasta with plenty of boiling water and salt.

When the pasta is perfect, drain and add to the tuna mixture. If I’m using this over a few nights then I will put a portion of the tuna mixture aside before adding pasta to what I’ll be eating that night.

And that’s it. Give it some ripped basil if you aren’t making this a fiery dish. You can put it all in a casserole dish and then cover with breacrumbs and grill if you want one of those pasta bake things that come out of packets but I like it just the way Mom intended.