This past year has been pretty great food wise and one of the best dishes I ate this year was when I was in Turin, Italy for Terra Madre and Salone Del Gusto.

Picture this - my husband and I are at Eataly Lingotto ouside of Turin, Italy, enjoying a stroll through the amazing food market. Hunger pangs begin to hit and we wonder which of the seven restaurants do we eat in?

We choose to eat at the pizza and pasta restaurant. We sit down, water and bread arrive and we peruse a small yet fantastic menu. We order a bottle of Pradalupo, a white from Piemonte. I order a simple pizza of smoked buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto while Doug decides on the pasta of the day: pasta con tonno.

His pasta, so simple yet probably one of the best pastas I have ever eaten. Fresh rotini, the highest quality olive oil packed tuna, tomato concasse, lemon juice and parsley. Elegant and delicious. This pasta with its simplicity was right up my alley.

Fast forward to today and we are still craving this pasta. Luckily, we brought back a few cans of this amazing olive oil packed tuna and we decided to re-create this pasta dish a couple of nights ago.

For our version, we chose tagliatelle instead of rotini and we added chili flakes as we both like a little heat in our pastas. As we sat down to enjoy our dinner, we took a bite and we were both transported back to that October day where we enjoyed a memorable lunch in the city of Turin.

Pasta Con Tonno

Serves 2

200g pasta (1/5 lb); cooked in salted water until al dente (we used tagliatelle)
1 can tuna packed in olive oil; tuna and oil (use a quality Italian tuna)
5-10 ripe grape tomatoes, halved
½ C parsley, chopped
½ lemon; juice
1 tsp dried chilies (optional)
salt & pepper
Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated

Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente; drain and save about 1 tbsp of the cooking liquid. While the pasta is still hot, mix in the tuna (including oil), parsley, tomatoes and lemon juice.

Season to taste. Finish the pasta with the freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.