Recipe of the Week: Pepper Pasta with Tuna
Ingredients:
- Spaghetti or linguine
- Red bell peppers
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Garlic
- Anchovies
- Tuna
- Capers
- Crushed red pepper
- Oregano
- Lemon juice
- Pepper
- Parsley
- Parmesan cheese
Method & Analysis:
Eagle-eyed readers will probably notice that this week’s recipe bears a stark, unmistakable resemblance to my penne with sausage and broccoli rabe recipe from Week 6. This resemblance is a feature, not a bug. Recipe writing is an act of teaching, and one of the lessons I always feel I’m failing to impress upon my loyal and beloved audience is that most cooking projects have a wide margin for error, which means that most cooking projects also accommodate a great deal of variation. I want you to experiment, but I think I’ve struggled to tell you what experimental cooking looks like. That means it’s time to show you.
This recipe uses the same basic technical framework as the penne recipe – boil some pasta, cook some other stuff while the pasta boils, then combine everything – with minor variations in the ingredients and techniques used. The result is a dish that feels more unique than it actually is. Consider this recipe an invitation to use your imagination; I am not descending from my ivory tower to impart wrote instructions from which you must not deviate. I am showing you how to make something new from something you already understand, and I am challenging you to devise further variations you want to experiment with yourself.
To begin, set a pot of water on to boil, and add plenty of salt. While the water heats up, slice a couple of red bell peppers into thin strips. Grab your trusty frying pan, add a generous amount of olive oil, and place the pan on medium high heat. Once the oil in the pan is hot, it will thin out, take on a visible shimmer, and sizzle a little bit on its own; add your pepper strips and a couple pinches of salt when this happens. If you can’t tell if your oil is hot just by looking, wet the tip of one of your fingers and let a drop or two run off and splash in the pan. If the oil sizzles and the water evaporates in a couple seconds or so, your oil is hot. If the oil only sizzles a bit (or not at all), remain patient. Keep an eye open for the visual signs of hot oil, and do the test again when you think it’s warranted.
Saute your peppers for a few minutes, stirring every so often. You want the outsides of your strips to take on a deep brown caramelization, and that simply will not happen if you are stirring your strips every other second. While you are letting the peppers sit a bit, you’ll find that you have just enough time to prep the rest of your ingredients, stirring as you complete each task. Peel and mince 8-10 cloves of fresh garlic and set them aside, then mince a couple of anchovy fillets into as tiny of pieces as you can manage. Haul two standard-issue sized cans of tuna out of your pantry, then open and drain them. Ideally, you have the means to support getting the nice tuna that’s packed in olive oil, but if you don’t the water-packed stuff will do. Either way, drain them and set them aside. Cut a couple of medium-sized lemons in half and squeeze the juice into a small bowl, removing any and all seeds. Rinse a small handful of fresh parsley, pull the leaves off of the stems, give the leaves a rough chop, and set them aside.
Your peppers are done when they have thoroughly softened and browned attractively; if they burn a bit on the outside because you didn’t actually stir that much because you were busy with all of those other prep tasks, that’s fine. You may even find a bit of char on peppers enhances their flavor and texture. If they aren’t all that brown after a few minutes, be patient. Make sure your heat is set to medium high, and consider stirring less frequently than you have been. Once the peppers are done, remove the pan from the heat, dump them out of the pan into a small bowl or other suitable container, and set them aside. If your water isn’t boiling yet., now is a great time to work on any of the prep tasks from the last paragraph you haven’t gotten around to yet.
Eventually, your water will come to a boil. Dump a one-pound box of pasta (spaghetti or linguine are the best pastas for this dish, but just about any type of pasta will do the job) into the pot, then check the packaging. Set and start a timer for the lowest time specified on the box. Even if your pasta is a bit underdone at the end of this time (and it won’t be), it will cook a bit more during the combining phase, so it’s important that you avoid boiling it for too long.
Once your pasta is in the water, dump a generous amount of olive oil back into your frying pan and put the pan back on medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add the minced garlic and stir. Once the garlic becomes fragrant, add the anchovies and keep stirring. The tiny anchovy pieces will disintegrate into little flecks, lending their umami heft to the finished dish without overpowering it. Once the anchovies are incorporated, add plenty of shakes of crushed red pepper and dried oregano and let those become fragrant, then spoon your tuna out of the cans and into the pan. Break the tuna up as you stir it in with everything else, but do your best to leave a handful of medium-sized tuna chunks. Next, add a modest amount of capers and stir them in, then drop a few pinches of salt and a metric crapton of cracked black pepper on top of the assembled mess.
Once the capers are stirred in and the tuna has warmed back up, add the peppers back into the pot and reduce the heat to low. Everything that is currently in the pot is sufficiently cooked; you just need to keep it warm until it’s time to ad the pasta and finish the dish. To that end, check your timer. If there is more than a minute remaining, now is the time to prep the lemon juice and parsley, as you’ll need them shortly. If there is less than a minute remaining, dunk a liquid measuring cup into the pasta pot and extract some pasta water. You will need about half a cup of pasta water per pound of pasta cooked, although I like to extract an entire cup just in case.
Drain your pasta when the timer goes off and bump the heat on your frying pan up to medium low. Dump the drained pasta into the pan along with the lemon juice, a modest amount of pasta water, the chopped parsley, a few glugs of olive oil, and one last pinch of salt (for luck), then begin stirring. Using vigorous but controlled motions, stir your pasta constantly until the ingredients from the pan disperse throughout the noodles and everything takes on a glossy sheen. This will take at least a couple of minutes, but it is also a gradual process. If it doesn’t seem like either is happening after a minute or so, add more splashes of pasta water and/or olive oil until it does.
Once the noodles take on that glossy sheen, it means that the oil, pasta water, and lemon juice have combined into an actual sauce. Your pasta is now done. Kill the heat and serve your pasta into bowls, then sprinkle freshly grated Parmesan, and perhaps some additional crushed red and cracked black pepper if you wish. Serve immediately.
As you eat, think about what you like about this dish and what you would do differently to improve it. Want to use a different kind of fish? Want to use a different vegetable? Do you want it to be more spicy? Less spicy? Are there any other seasoning you want to try out? Do you feel as though you didn’t do a great job with one or more of this recipe’s constituent tasks, and are you wanting another go at it as a result? Your ability to ask these questions of yourself – to think about what you like and don’t like about what you’re eating, and what changes you want to try out in a dish – is the bedrock of all home cooking. You’re on the right path, now you just need to try things out and get some reps in. You can do it, I believe in you. Dig in!
Week 14 NFL Confidence Pool
Week 13 Correct Picks:14/16 (0.875)
Season Total Correct Picks: 129/195 (0.662)
Week 13 Points: 116/136 (0.853)
Season Total Points: 1,065/1,567 (0.680)
Bye: Broncos, Colts, Commanders, Patriots, Ravens, Texans
13 Points: Eagles over Panthers
12 Points: Bills over Rams
11 Points: Vikings over Falcons
10 Points: Lions over Packers
I don’t like this! I don’t like this at all! Putting the max on the Eagles is a no-brainer, but I would hedge every other game in this group if I had the room to do so. Alas, there are six teams on bye this week, and no such room exists.
The Bills are the best team in the AFC, however, this week they are walking into a classic trap game, to be played under classic trap game conditions. They are coming off of a massive, division-clinching win in primetime, but now have to travel all the way across the country to face a respectable team that remains fully in the thick of a bizarre division title chase. It may be a trap game perfect storm, but beyond that, is there a rational reason to think the Rams are gonna win this one? Not even “maybe Matthew Stafford goes berserk” is a terribly compelling argument because it’s too easy to turn around – maybe Josh Allen goes berserk too! I can’t pick the Rams outright, but I’m wary of picking the Bills, and the Bills all but demand double digits in a week with this few games. I might not feel great about giving them 12, but what are the alternatives?
It would be bonkers to give those 12 points to the Lions, even if they’re one of the only teams that might be better than the Bills. They have a super-important division rivalry game this week against a Packers team that has – and I really hate to say this next part out loud, but it’s true – climbed all the way back to 9-3 without drawing much attention to themselves. They are fully resurrected, and not to be slept on this week under any circumstances. You could even pick them outright if you wanted, and with real points behind it. If you must pick the Lions, don’t even think about going any higher than 10. Also, be wary of the Vikings this week. They really should have lost to the Cardinals, and if the Cardinals can beat them the Falcons can, too. I’m still picking the Vikings and I’m giving them double digits too, but that’s mostly because I have four double digit assignments to fill, and the alternative involves giving this assignment to the Steelers. Ew.
9 Points: Steelers over Browns
8 Points: Buccaneers over Raiders
7 Points: Chiefs over Chargers
6 Points: Dolphins over Jets
5 Points: Cardinals over Seahawks
Two weeks ago, I talked myself into giving the Steelers double digits against the putrid and useless Browns, and the resulting 10-point loss was my justly deserved reward for breaking one of my sturdiest rules. I’m still picking the Steelers because I have to; there is no rational basis for picking the Browns against anyone, especially a future playoff team. But damned if I’ll make the exact same mistake twice. The Raiders are total puke, so I’d like to give the Bucs more than this, but they’ve betrayed me multiple times this season. This assignment reflects that.
At the risk of damaging my credibility, I am compelled to confess that this Chiefs pick and its corresponding assignment are essentially arbitrary. It is well established that the Chiefs are nowhere near as good as their record, but we all (rightly) respect Mahomes and Reid too much to call them frauds. The Chargers overcame a shaky start and overall lack of top-end talent to emerge as a virtual playoff lock (their DVOA-based playoff odds currently sit at 96.8%). In other words, neither team is supposed to be here, and that makes sensible, sober, non-superstitious analysis of this game unspeakably difficult. I’m picking the Chiefs because they are at home and I’ve won a lot of points this year picking them, so I’m disinclined to pick against them unless they’re clearly outmatched, which they are not, however legit the Chargers may be.
Speaking of exasperated shrugs masquerading as considered, rational confidence pool picks, I am completely done trying to understand just what in the ever-living fuck is going on in the NFC West. I think the Cardinals are the better team, probably, but does that even matter? Because from where I’m sitting, no NFC West game this season has played out according to expectation. My only recourse is to make a vibes-based guess as to which team is better, and assign as few points as I can manage. All of this is to say that I think both the Cardinals and Seahawks are better than the baby-soft Dolphins, but I have no doubt Miami can handle business against the Jets, whose continued, self-inflicted suffering continues unabated, to my great delight.
4 Points: Cowboys over Bengals
3 Points: Bears over 49ers
2 Points: Saints over Giants
1 Point: Titans over Jaguars
Denigrate the circumstances and/or quality of opposition all you want, but the fact of the matter is that the Cowboys have won two games in a row to improve to 5-7, and as such, they are only Mostly Dead. The Bengals have a vastly superior quarterback, but that hardly matters when their defense is capable of surrendering 44 points to the Steelers. I’ve spent the entire season waiting for the Bengals to improve from Mostly Dead to Slightly Alive (there is a difference), but it’s finally, undeniably clear that’s not gonna happen.
Picking against the Bears has been easy money lately, but now that Eberflus is gone, I expect a traditional interim coach dead cat bounce against a 9ers team that is as All Dead as a team that’s only 2 games behind can be. 2 entire points would be too rich for my blood against most opponents, but the Giants are engaged in one of the more shameless tank jobs I can recall in the sport. Woe unto anyone who places more than 1 point on this Sunday’s Thursday Night Classic. I’m picking the Titans because I presume Mac Jones will be starting for Jacksonville, even though I can’t be bothered to confirm that. Life is short and my time is valuable.
Enjoy the games, everybody!
Rob Writes About Whatever 