That was my reaction when trying out this recipe that I found at the back of a pasta packet.
When I saw this recipe, I thought, okay, I can try this. I'll just omit the zucchini since it's hard to find and I'm not a big fan of it anyway. I didn't use bay leaf or chilli pepper either (I don't even know whether they mean an actual chilli pepper or just the powder or flakes).
I always feel like pasta recipes lack flavour when I use already-cooked ingredients (for example, they taste better when I use fresh chicken meat instead of chicken sausage), so I didn't expect much from canned tuna. I suspected that the flavour would come from the anchovies, so I went searching for anchovies in oil.
But I was unable to find any in the two supermarkets I went to, so I ended up using dried anchovies (I soaked them in water first). Since I wasn't using bay leaf, I also omitted the first step of cooking the bay leaf in water. I also added in some pepper when putting in the tomato sauce, to make up for the absence of chilli pepper.
The result:
Actually it didn't look especially nice, just normal. But when tasting it, I was pleasantly surprised... somehow it is quite flavourful! I still attribute it to the anchovies... By the way, I sliced them into thin slices but I still felt they were a bit chewy when I bit into them (I think they are supposed to "disappear" into the tuna), so maybe next time I will put the anchovies in the way they told us to put in the bay leaf. Let it simmer for a while... maybe that will soften it!
Another note: I had a minor oil explosion when adding in the anchovies, probably because I had soaked them in water and they were not dried (oops). Maybe that is why they asked us to use tuna in oil and anchovies in oil, so that there would be no explosion? I did wonder why they didn't ask us to use tuna in water, since we were going to drain the tuna anyway... (but then tuna is added at then end, so there should be no explosion anyway... hmm....)
Anyway, I still have tuna left, so I will try it out again soon... and the next time I go to some larger supermarket I will look out for anchovies in oil!
When I saw this recipe, I thought, okay, I can try this. I'll just omit the zucchini since it's hard to find and I'm not a big fan of it anyway. I didn't use bay leaf or chilli pepper either (I don't even know whether they mean an actual chilli pepper or just the powder or flakes).
I always feel like pasta recipes lack flavour when I use already-cooked ingredients (for example, they taste better when I use fresh chicken meat instead of chicken sausage), so I didn't expect much from canned tuna. I suspected that the flavour would come from the anchovies, so I went searching for anchovies in oil.
But I was unable to find any in the two supermarkets I went to, so I ended up using dried anchovies (I soaked them in water first). Since I wasn't using bay leaf, I also omitted the first step of cooking the bay leaf in water. I also added in some pepper when putting in the tomato sauce, to make up for the absence of chilli pepper.
The result:
Actually it didn't look especially nice, just normal. But when tasting it, I was pleasantly surprised... somehow it is quite flavourful! I still attribute it to the anchovies... By the way, I sliced them into thin slices but I still felt they were a bit chewy when I bit into them (I think they are supposed to "disappear" into the tuna), so maybe next time I will put the anchovies in the way they told us to put in the bay leaf. Let it simmer for a while... maybe that will soften it!
Another note: I had a minor oil explosion when adding in the anchovies, probably because I had soaked them in water and they were not dried (oops). Maybe that is why they asked us to use tuna in oil and anchovies in oil, so that there would be no explosion? I did wonder why they didn't ask us to use tuna in water, since we were going to drain the tuna anyway... (but then tuna is added at then end, so there should be no explosion anyway... hmm....)
Anyway, I still have tuna left, so I will try it out again soon... and the next time I go to some larger supermarket I will look out for anchovies in oil!
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