Post 181: One Pound Pasta Lunch, Tuna Chilli Penne

I've been getting bored of sandwiches for lunch. There's a new cafe opened nearby but they gave me a rather grizzly burger. So I thought back a while. I used to work on Southwark Street in that there London village and there was an italian sandwich shop on there - the kind of which you don't really seem to get anywhere else other than London.

As well as chicken escalopes, they also did amongst the chicken escalopes a Tune Penne Chilli - which they served either hot or cold. I always thought it better cold and this is what I went for. The overall effect is pretty similar. The whole lot was <£1 per portion and took less than 15 minutes.

Recipe:

• Started by putting the 250gs pasta into boiling water (13 minutes)
• Chopped two cloves of garlic and two chillies and fried them in just a little oil: just long enough to take the raw taste off. (I don't think the original included garlic: but I'm not trying to shift and I like it! I don't think the dish would suffer for it's omission though)
• Added in 1/2 litre of passata and 1 tin of Tuna and brought to a simmer, breaking up with tuna lumps
• By this time the pasta was cooked, so drain
• Stir through the tuna passata mix with the pasta

Initially this looked like far too much sauce for the pasta, but as the pasta cools it soaks up the sauce. Once cooled, this gives a consistency that can be fairly easily eaten with a fork without fear of making a mess. These quantities gave a total weight of 1,450 gs, which is enough for 3 fairly reasonable portions.

I don't normally bother about costs, but I'm so pleased with the cheapness here:

• 250gs De Cecco Penne (500gs are £1.49 for 2 at Tesco's) = 38p
• 1 tin of Tuna =75p
• 1/2 litre passata = 40p
• 2 chillies, 2 cloves of garlic - 10p?

Cost per portion of about 55p! Not my finest creation ever, but pretty good for the 15 minutes it took me and a pleasant change from cheese butties.