WHAT ARE YOU COOKING TODAY – A TUNA PASTA RECIPE

I discovered this tuna pasta recipe when I was 15 going on 16 one summer in France.  It was at a summer camp in the south of France. We were staying in mobile homes on a camp ground near the city of Toulon.  It was a lot of fun.  We had to cook our own meals and this tuna pasta recipe was taught to me by one of my roommates.

This tuna pasta recipe is so easy to make and delicious.  I’ve improved it through out the years and even my kids are capable of making it.

To give it a little twist, I decided to actually make the pasta instead of buying it.  However, I did not go and fish the Tuna because I don’t live near the ocean and I don’t know how to fish.

How to make your own pasta 

If you don’t have a pasta machine, skip this part. I actually have one collecting dust in my pantry so I decided to finally put it to good use.  It was actually a gift I had made to my ex-husband and somehow I ended up with it.  I think it must have been used twice!

Ingredients to make your own pasta dough

I found the recipe to make my own pasta dough on The Spruce Eats.com. To make it even more ‘challenging’, I picked a recipe that would give a flavor to my pasta: Spinach.  

• 1 Pasta machine
• 4 cups of flour (1 cup = 128 gr.) and extra to sprinkle on the dough
• 5 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups  (283 gr.) of spinach. 

My husband bought me baby spinach but the recipe had said frozen spinach. It did the job.

• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of olive oil (optional)

Steps to make the pasta dough (20 minutes)

1. Put in the blender the eggs and the spinach and purée them.  The spinach needs to be rinsed and chopped a little.
2. Combine the flour and the salt together in a bowl and then pour it onto a mat or chopping board on the countertop. Whatever surface you decide to put the mixture on, flour it a little so that the dough won’t stick to it. Make a mound with it and a well in the middle. 
3. Slowly pour the green mixture from the blender into the flour well, using a fork to stir incorporating slowly the flour with the mixture.

This is a part I forgot to do.  I started stirring everything together in the bowl. Really not practical.

It seems that my boys and I have trouble following recipes, just check our Jello playdough recipe to see what we forgot.

4. Once you can’t stir no more, start kneading the dough until it becomes relatively smooth and not too sticky. Form the dough into a ball.

5. Set aside the dough for 20 / 30 minutes or refrigerate it for up to 1 day.  Wrap it with a clean dishtowel.

How to use the pasta machine (forever minutes)

Having never used one myself, I had to use YouTube to figure out how to use a pasta machine.

Don’t forget to clamp the machine to the counter or table to prevent it from moving around!

Turn the dial to the widest setting, for me it was 6 but it could be 1 for you.

Divide the pasta dough into 4 or 6 equal size pieces.  Take one and flatten it into a rectangle.  The other pieces of dough, keep covered so that they don’t dry out.

Pass through the machine the flatten dough slowly on your widest setting. To do so, start with one of the shorter sides of the rectangle and feed it through the rollers. This will make the dough spread out to fill the full width of the machine.

Once you passed it through the first time, fold it in half or into thirds and pass the dough through the rollers again.  Sprinkle a little flour onto the dough and the rollers so that the dough doesn’t stick. Repeat this process about 6 times on the widest setting.

Next steps

Continue to pass the dough through the rollers while reducing the thickness setting each time.  Pass it once on each setting. The pasta needs to be thin enough that you can see your fingers through the pasta.

Tip: In order to save time, press the edges together of the flatten dough to create a loop.  This way, you won’t have to keep removing the dough from the machine and feeding it back in.

I wish I had known this tip while I was doing this because it took us FOREVER to roll that dam pasta dough!

Once all the dough has been rolled and flattened, either use the sheets of pasta for lasagna or cut into noodles or raviolis.  We opted for the noodles since we had the attachment for it.

Make sure you lay them on a clean kitchen towel and cover them with a damp cloth so that they don’t dry out while you are cutting the rest.  

Tip: anywhere it could touch itself, add a little flour so that it doesn’t stick.

From pasta sheets to pasta strands

There are two ways to make pasta strands, the hard way or the high way.

Personally, since the result of our dough and rolling wasn’t as advertised, it really doesn’t matter which option we decided to choose.

Option 1 – cut them yourself

Once you’ve gone through all the settings, fold the pasta sheet twice in half and then cut to desired width.

Option 2 – use the machine

Your machine should come with an attachment to make fettuccini and spaghetti strands. Connect the cutter attachment to the machine and transfer the handle to it.

Use one sheet of pasta at a time and keep the rest covered as mentioned above.  To make it easier to work with, cut the pasta sheet in half.

As you run it through the machine, grab the other side so that it doesn’t bundle up.  Lay the strands on another towel and cover them while you repeat the process with the rest of the sheets of paper.

You can dry the pasta a little once it has all been cut so that it becomes a little firm and less sticky.  This will prevent the pasta from sticking together when it is cooked.  

Pasta can be hung dry on a towel rack, a drying rack, the back of a chair or even clothes hangers.  They get the job done.  There is no need to go and buy a pasta drying rack if it’s not something you’re going to do often.

Otherwise, you can make pasta nests with the strands.  Then, just wrap a couple around your fingers or a fork and lay it down on a clean dish towel, sprinkling it with a little flour.

How to cook fresh pasta

Fresh pasta should be cooked just before serving with the sauce ready.  Make sure you add salt to the water in which you plan to cook the pasta in.  Pasta absorbs the salt which adds flavour to it.

Generally, 3 minutes will be enough for the pasta to cook, once you’ve put it in boiling water.  Make sure you stir it while it is cooking to prevent it from sticking together.  Taste it after three minutes to see if it is cooked to your liking.

Ingredients for the Tuna Pasta Recipe

If you can’t make your own pasta or just don’t have the time, just buy some at the store.  Having lived in Italy for a while, we developed a taste for the Barilla brand.  However, you can use whichever brand you like.

For 4 servings (approximately)

• 2 cans of tuna
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Grated cheese such as: Swiss, mozzarella or parmesan. 

Quantity will vary pending if you mix it in with the sauce or sprinkle it separately on each plate.

• 1 cup of crème fraîche, sour cream or liquid cooking cream.  

Crème fraîche is the best, but in North America, it’s not always easy to come by nor cheap.  You can add more of it if you’d like, just as long as you don’t make the mixture too liquid and creamy.

• Olive oil

Use enough to cook garlic in.

• 1 teaspoon of pepper and salt
• 1 broccoli (optional)
• 4 tablespoons of chives (optional)

How to make tuna pasta

Cut the cloves of garlic into small pieces.  Add them to a deep sauce pan that has been preheated with some olive oil. Let the garlic roast a little but not too much, just enough to soften a bit.

Add the tuna to the saucepan.  Make sure that you have removed any liquid from the can before you add the tuna.  Break the tuna down inside the saucepan while stirring on medium heat.

Once the tuna has been broken down and mixed in with the garlic add the cream, the salt and pepper, mix a little and then let it simmer until the pasta is ready.

Option:  you can use add cooked broccoli to the sauce, if you want to add some green to the recipe.  I didn’t this time as we made our pasta with spinach.  Make sure though that you cut the broccoli into small pieces before adding it to the sauce.

Once the pasta is ready and has been strained, put it back into the pot, add the mixture and the cheese. Mix all of it and then serve.  You can add 1 tablespoon of chives for presentation.

My husband doesn’t like cheese.  So I have to leave it out of the pasta and tuna sauce when I make this recipe and add it separately to our plates.  It’s still as good, but it’s better if you can mix it with the pasta and sauce before serving.

What’s great about a pasta recipe is that you can adapt it to your liking just like I did with this tuna one.

A popular and real simple pasta recipe that is used by a good majority of French families is pasta and ham.  The ingredients are: pasta, piece of butter, small pieces of ham (the one we use for our sandwiches), grated cheese, salt and pepper, and Voilà!

Bon appétit !