Linguine with Tuna, Lemon Butter, and Mint • Kath Eats

This 20-minute lemon tuna pasta with linguine, brown butter, and contemporary mint is impressed by a dish I had in Sardinia.

I had a pasta dish in Sardinia final summer time that I haven’t stopped fascinated with: linguine, huge chunks of tuna, tender cooked-down eggplant, lemon, lemon zest, butter, and — the half that threw me — mint. It’s not an herb I often toss onto savory dishes, however it was SO GOOD! I’ve been recreating the lemon mint pasta combo at house ever since. It really works with shrimp or hen too!

Humorous factor about pasta in Italy: it’s often the primo, a course by itself, with protein saved for the secondo that comes after. So many of the pasta I ate that journey had zero meat or fish in it. This pasta in Sardinia broke that sample, and it was the very best dinner I had the entire journey.

The Unique:

The recipe is just not fancy, and it comes collectively in 20 minutes. Shiny, with slightly warmth, slightly surprising. Good for a weeknight when it’s too sizzling to assume exhausting about dinner. I really like that it makes use of tinned fish, so it’s simply a pantry staple meal you probably have slightly mint in your backyard (or neighbor’s backyard!)

I make this with Fishwife’s Albacore Tuna with Spanish Lemon, and it’s principally the shortcut model of the dish I had abroad — the tuna already comes packed in olive oil with lemon juice, so half the flavour work is finished earlier than you open the tin.

Substances

• 12 oz linguine
• 1 small eggplant, diced
• 3 tins (3.2 oz every) Fishwife Albacore Tuna with Spanish Lemon, drained and damaged into chunks (don’t shred it — you need actual bites)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp butter
• 2 lemons — zest of each, juice of half (style earlier than including extra; the tuna brings its personal lemon)
• 1/3 cup contemporary mint leaves, torn or thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
• Pink pepper flakes, a pinch
• Flaky salt and black pepper
• Shaved pecorino, for serving

Directions

Prepare dinner the Linguine

Prepare dinner the linguine in well-salted water till simply shy of al dente — you’ll end it within the pan. Scoop out a mug of pasta water earlier than you drain.

Prepare dinner the Eggplant

Whereas the water’s coming as much as boil, warmth the olive oil in an enormous skillet over medium warmth. Add the diced eggplant and prepare dinner, stirring sometimes, till deeply tender and beginning to break down, 8–10 minutes. Season with a pinch of salt. It’s possible you’ll want so as to add slightly water throughout the cooking course of. This may assist it steam and break down.

Construct the Butter Base

Push the eggplant to the aspect, and soften butter over medium-low warmth with the garlic and pink pepper flakes. Let it go tender and aromatic, possibly 2 minutes. You’re not browning it, simply gently cooking.

End the Pasta within the Skillet

Add the drained linguine straight into the skillet together with a splash of the pasta water. Toss it over medium warmth for a minute so it finishes cooking in that butter and eggplant.

Fold within the Tuna and Lemon

Off the warmth, fold within the tuna chunks, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Go mild right here — you need huge flakes of tuna intact.

Add the Mint and Serve

Scatter within the mint and toss as soon as, simply sufficient to wilt it barely. Style for salt, add a crack of black pepper, and serve instantly with pecorino.

Recipe Notes

Tuna Model

The tuna high quality issues greater than anything on this recipe, and it’s why I preserve a stack of Fishwife tins within the pantry. It’s pole-and-line caught, MSC-certified, and packed by hand in Spanish olive oil with contemporary lemon juice — so that you’re getting actual, tender chunks of fish, not the flaky stuff from a store-brand can. The lemon tuna particularly was made for this dish. In case you can’t discover it, their plain olive-oil tuna works too — simply add the juice of a full lemon as a substitute of half.

Don’t skip the mint!

Don’t skip the mint, even when it appears like a wierd selection on paper. It’s what makes this style like a visit and never simply one other lemon pasta.

Don’t rush the eggplant

Don’t rush the eggplant. You need it correctly tender and beginning to collapse. Give it the total 8–10 minutes and resist the urge to stir it continually.

Leftovers

Leftovers reheat fantastic with a splash of water and slightly additional lemon juice to wake it again up, however that is actually greatest eaten the day you make it — the mint loses its punch by day two.

Add some veggies!

I stored this recipe easy and true to the one I had, however you possibly can after all toss in any greens you’d wish to make it a bit extra effectively rounded. Halved cherry tomatoes are my first decide — toss them into the butter for a minute earlier than the pasta goes in so that they blister and get juicy, and that acidity performs rather well with the lemon. Child spinach works too — a pair handfuls tossed in with the mint on the finish wilts down in seconds. One other advice is frozen peas, added straight from the freezer over the past minute the linguine is within the skillet — peas and mint are a traditional pairing for a motive.