Preparation time:
- 20mins
Cooking time:
- 25mins
Specialty:
- Dairy-free
- Gluten-free (optional)
- Pescatarian
During these November weekends, some summertime sadness brought us to prepare one of the best Italian summer recipes ever: Pasta with fresh tuna, tomato sauce and fried eggplant. Our take of this Italian classic recipe plays around with different consistencies and we experimented an alternative way of plating. You can mix also all the ingredients together at the end and the taste will be absolutely amazing.
Ingredients (2 Servings):
- 180g of Rigatoni
- 1 Fresh Tuna Fillet
- 1 Eggplant
- 16 Cherry Tomatoes
- 2 Cloves of Garlic
- Extra-virgin Olive Oil
- Freshly Ground Black Pepper
- Fresh Basil
- Sea Salt
Instructions:
- In a wok, simmer a clove of garlic with extra-virgin olive oil until it becomes golden. Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves and add them to the wok.
- Season with sea salt and cook with the lid at medium heat for 10mins. Once the cherry tomatoes are completely cooked, blend them into a smooth creamy sauce.
- Cut the eggplant into half. Roughly slice half of the eggplant. Add the slices into a pan with some extra-virgin olive oil and a clove of garlic. Add 1/4 cup of water. Cook with the lid at medium heat until they become soft. Occasionally stir. It should take 10 minutes.
- Once cooked, add the eggplant slices into the blender with extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt and black pepper.
- Blend it until you obtain a fine and creamy puree. Adjust with sea salt, pepper and extra-virgin olive oil to your taste. You can store it in the fridge (cover with a layer of extra-virgin olive oil) for a 7-10 days.
- Dice the remaining half eggplant (cut cubes half the size of a thumb, making sure they are all the same size) and sprinkle salt on top of each cube in order to remove the excess water. Let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil in a pan and fry the eggplant until they become golden brown (usually cook for 10 minutes).
- Once cooked, let the eggplant cubes rest on a paper towel to remove the excess oil.
- Pan fry the tuna fillet with some extra-virgin olive oil in a non-stick pan for a couple of minutes per side. Season with salt and pepper and mince it with a fork.
- Boil water in a pot and once the water is boiling add 1 tablespoon of sea salt and then add the pasta. The pasta needs to cook for 2 mins less than the time recommended on the box to have it Al Dente.
- Drain the pasta with a strainer and remove all the excess water.
- Plate the pasta, filling the tubes with some tuna and add some tomato sauce on top.
- Drizzle some eggplant puree and some extra-virgin olive oil.
- Add some fried eggplant cubes and fresh basil.