This pantry-friendly recipe is easy to scale back to 2 servings, but leftovers taste great cold. I’d add chopped celery or carrots to the latter.
It has been a personal favorite over the years for a couple of reasons, including the fact that the original sauce-only ingredient list called for five components instead of three (not including salt and pepper; see the name of the cookbook it came from). The slight goof makes me smile. But you get the drift: It’s 1-2-3 easy.
If the taste of raw garlic doesn’t agree with you, pop the whole cloves into the pasta pot for a few minutes, then let them cool before mincing.
Serve with a salad of peppery greens.
Tuna, Dill and Garlic Pasta With Hazelnuts
4 servings
Adapted from “Cooking With Three Ingredients: Flavorful Food Easy as 1, 2, 3,” by Andrew Schloss (HarperCollins, 1996).
½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for the cooking water
8 ounces fresh linguine
½ cup hazelnuts (skin-on or skinned)
3 cloves garlic
Small handful fresh dill
10 to 14 ounces (from 2 cans) good-quality tuna packed in olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add a good pinch of salt, then the pasta. Cook just until tender, then drain, reserving ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water.
Toast the hazelnuts in a small, dry skillet over medium heat, shaking the pan often to avoid scorching, just until the nuts are fragrant and lightly browned in spots. Cool, then coarsely chop.
Smash, then mince the garlic. Finely chop the dill.
Place the tuna and its oil (to taste; if you like a lot of tuna, use the whole cans) in a pasta serving bowl; use a fork to break up any large clumps of fish. Add the garlic, dill, the just-cooked pasta and its cooking water; toss. Mix in a few grinds of pepper and the ½ teaspoon of salt.
Divide among bowls; garnish with the hazelnuts. Serve right away.
