Recipe: Tuna Pasta Bake

Tuna Pasta Bake

Hiii! Thought of sharing a recipe this time. Tuna Pasta Bake. This recipe is from my sister-in-law. So credit goes to her. I did not have enough ingredients, so I tweaked my ingredients a bit. I used whatever ingredients I had in the kitchen. The ingredients here is enough for about 3 baking pans. Okay now, first and foremost, the ingredients:

Ingredients / Bahan-bahan

The ingredients for Tuna Pasta Bake
*NOT INCLUDED: olive oil, tomato puree and herbs

• 1 packet of bow tie pasta / 1 paket pasta tali leher busar (kah kah kah, suka hati direct translation)
• 3 Leggo's Pasta Bake sauce (2 Creamy Tomato & Mozarella, 1 Tomato, Ricotta & Spinach) 
• 3 canned Tunas. Here I used, Captain's Catch Tuna Chunks in Spring Water
• 1 can of button mushrooms (or more if you like a lot of mushrooms)
• Shredded cheese mix. Do purchase the large packet, or a few of the small ones. The more the cheese the better! 
• Olive oil (didn't have olive oil, so I substituted it with margarine)
• Various Italian herbs (didn't use, cause I didn't have any)
• Tomato puree (optional ingredient)

Let's get cookin'! / Mari memasak!

Ye puan-puan (dan tuan-tuan), mari kita mulakan...

1. Cook the pasta: i) Boil water. ii) At boiling point add in salt and olive oil/margarine. iii) Boil pasta according to time stated on package minus 2 minutes (if the pasta says boil for 10 minutes, boil it at 8 minutes instead). 
2. In a separate pot, dump drained tuna (toskan/keringkan air tuna di dalam tin). Use olive oil/margarine to cook the tuna. Pour just enough of olive oil to cover bottom of the pan. Tak perlu letak banyak sangat. Cook for 3-4 minutes. In the meantime, heat up the oven and butter the pan. 
3. In this step, you need to use a very large pot. Because we will be making the sauce for the pasta. Drain the mushroom, then sautee it with a little bit of olive oil for 3 minutes.
   
   

   

   Homemade tomato puree. Wash the tomatoes, peel the skin off, spoon out the seeds, dice the tomatoes.
   Then, you can either blend or mash the tomatoes in the pot while cooking.
   Stir with a spoon until the tomatoes are in liquid form, then add in some tomato sauce to taste.



4. Next, add in tomato puree (optional). Didn't have tomato puree, so I made my own.
   
5. Then add in all the different pasta sauces. Stir untill simmer (kacau sehingga mereneh). Put in a generous amount of Italian herbs of your liking into the sauce (oregano, thyme, e.t.c...). Yang ni Anna tak bubuh sebab dah habis dah, ingat ada lagi. Sob sob. 
6. Once the pasta sauce starts simmering again, dump in the tuna you cooked earlier. Stir to mix.
   
   

   

   Mushrooms, tuna, bow tie pasta mixed with the pasta bake sauce.

   
   
7. Add in the cooked pasta. Make sure the water has been drained. Now, mix everything together gently. Sila kacau dengan lemah-lembut supaya tidak menghancurkan pasta. Yes, you need to be gentle with the pasta, it breaks easily. Not pretty. 
   
   
   
   
   

   

   Added Cheddar cheese slices. The more the merrier. Nyumm. 


8. Now that everything is mixed, pour about 1/3 of the pasta mix into the buttered pan (pastikan anda sudah menenyeh bekas nak bakar tu dengan butter/marjerin, kalau tak letak, melekat nanti bila bakar). Then sprinkle the shredded cheese mix evenly onto the pasta. Because I had very little cheese, I added cheddar cheese slices on top.
   
   

   

   The top part of the Tuna Pasta Bake



9. Then, pour more of the pasta over the sprinkled cheese. And add another layer of cheese on top. (repeat this with the other baking pans). Pandai-pandailah bahagikan pasta dan cheese tu ya. 
10. Put it in the pre-heated oven and bake 'till the cheese melts. Ya masukkan ke dalam ketuhar dan bakar sehinnga keju cairrrrr. Tadaaa. Dah siap. 

That's about it. There are of course various versions of Tuna Pasta Bake on the internet. But this is the only one I've tried so far. Feel free to ask me in the comments section if you need any further explanation.

Cooking from the heart to the tummy, 

{Sue Anna Joe}