Pasta with Tuna and Olives

This is a quick and easy one that I invented quite some time ago and haven’t made in a while. There’s nothing to cook except for the pasta, so it’s incredibly easy. It can be enjoyed at room temperature long after it’s been made, or even, I assume, cold. In that way perhaps it’s more like a pasta salad. But it’s best enjoyed hot, and it’s simple to prepare all of the ingredients while the pasta is cooking. This recipe pairs an age-old combination of olives and tuna. The capers and lemon add a bit of acidity and brine, which also compliments the tuna well, and the sweet, fruity olive oil balances them out.

You can use any type of olive, but between the capers and the lemon juice, you risk making this dish overly bitter, so try to err on the sweeter side when you select your olives. Also use the sweetest and fruitiest olive oil you’ve got to cut the bitterness of the other ingredients.

Any pasta will do for this, but I’ve always used farfalle.

And of course, you can use your mother’s garden-variety chicken-of-the-sea canned tuna for this, but it goes without saying that you will be infinitely more satisfied if you get one of the higher quality, chunkier varieties. You want chunks of tuna floating around in the pasta here – if you’re using the type that flakes into the consistency of tuna salad, it will give a vague tuna-y homogeneity to the whole dish that’s not really what you’re after, and in that case, why are you even bothering to make this in the first place?

Ingredients:

• 8 oz olives, minced
• 2 oz capers, minced
• juice of ½ lemon
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 6 oz canned or jarred tuna
• 8 oz farfalle pasta
• salt and pepper
• 2 oz pecorino tuscano, or similar consistency sheep milk cheese

Directions:

Put a pot of water on to boil, then add the pasta and cook according to taste. While it’s cooking, prepare the olives by depitting them. Lay them out on a cutting board and take a small, somewhat heavy object: a 12-oz can of something will work, a ramekin, or similar. Line the bottom with tin foil if you’re not totally certain it’s clean. Bring the object down on an individual olive hard enough to smash it. It will break open and the pit will be easy to remove with your fingers. There’s a certain satisfaction that can be derived from doing this – sort of like whack-a-mole. Smash all the olives then remove the pits. You will be left with olive pieces – mince these very fine with a knife, then mince the capers and mix together. You may do these last two steps in the food processor if you like; either way, it should be a very fine, almost paste-like mixture.

When the pasta is done, drain it and place in a bowl. Add the olive-caper mixture, tuna, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and plenty of coarsely ground black pepper. Toss, incorporating everything thoroughly and evenly, without breaking up the tuna too much.

Serve with a bit of grated pecorino tuscano on top.

Note: if you happen to have some fresh tuna on hand, or you’ve got an end or any other sort of usable scrap that didn’t get taken by another recipe, you may prepare that tuna for this dish as well by making a confit in the following manner: salt and pepper the tuna, then place in the smallest baking dish you can find. Completely submerge it in olive oil, then add several sprigs of fresh thyme and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic. Cook in the oven at a very low temperature (no higher than 250) for 45 mins to 1 hour, until the tuna is flaky yet still juicy.