Salmon Pasta in Tomato Sauce

Name: Salmon Pasta in Tomato Sauce — Easy Fish Pasta Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Salmon (fresh or frozen) 150 g; Tomatoes 2-3; Red bell pepper 1; Garlic 1 clove; Vegetable oil 2-3 tbsp; Sugar 1 tsp (5 g); Nutmeg a pinch (a knife tip); Salt, black pepper to taste; Pasta (penne) 200 g; Water for cooking the pasta 2 l; Salt for the pasta water 7 g per 1 l of water

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45 mins

Delicious salmon pasta makes a perfect breakfast, if you can get fresh fish. It seems like only 20-25 years have passed since a whole country vanished from the world, dissolved like morning fog. I won’t say I miss it or feel nostalgic. No. But sometimes episodes from childhood suddenly come flooding back, something tugs inside, and then it passes at once.

They say the USSR produced up to 600 kinds of canned food. Sealed jars of meat, vegetables, fish, jam and so on. Canned fish was the most popular kind back then. Scarce sprats, saury, pink salmon, cod liver — those were almost impossible to get. Something simpler was easier: “Tourist’s Breakfast” fish, gobies, “Kilki in tomato”. The taste of the last one is impossible to forget. Sometimes I suddenly get a craving and buy myself a can …

Kilka is the name for sprats and tyulka, small schooling fish of the herring family. I wouldn’t be wrong to say it is the most heavily fished species. It is caught by the ton, salted, smoked and canned. I read somewhere that at one time so many kilka were caught that the surplus was used to fertilize fields.

Finding “that very” kilka in tomato sauce is a harder task than solving the Schrödinger equation. Not long ago I made fish in tomato sauce. Not kilka, because buying raw kilka is also a problem. I found a salmon steak in the freezer. And that is how my recipe for salmon pasta with tomato fish sauce came to be.

Fish sauce goes with just about anything, but the tastiest dish we make at home is Italian pasta with salmon in tomato sauce. Jokes aside, my wife often asks for pasta with “kilka” in tomato. It’s a great fish sauce for spaghetti, in the manner of Bolognese.

I was surprised to learn that kilka in tomato sauce has been made for only a little over 60 years, supposedly at the Kerch fish cannery. There the fish is washed, fried and covered with hot tomato sauce.

11 ingredientsTo the recipe

More with salmon

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Salmon Risotto

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Salmon with Vegetables

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Salmon in Cream Sauce

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Canned Salmon Salad with Beets and Green Peas

1 h 30 min

Ingredients

2 servings

For the sauce
Salmon (fresh or frozen) 150 g
Tomatoes 2-3
Red bell pepper 1
Garlic 1 clove
Vegetable oil 2-3 tbsp
Sugar 1 tsp
(5 g)
Nutmeg a pinch (a knife tip)
Salt, black pepper to taste
For the pasta
Pasta (penne) 200 g
Water for cooking the pasta 2 l
Salt for the pasta water 7 g per 1 l of water

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparation

Strictly speaking, salmon isn’t essential. You can make this with any fish you have, even capelin. The principle is the same, and what matters is the flavor of the sauce.
It’s all very simple. Skin the fish, remove the bones and cut it into cubes. Thaw a frozen steak first.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water (cover them for 2–3 minutes), then peel them and remove the seeds.
Cut the tomatoes into large pieces and put them in a blender.
Wash the red bell pepper, remove the stem and seeds, cut it into pieces and add it to the blender too.
Peel the garlic clove and add it to the tomatoes and pepper.
Blend the tomatoes, pepper and garlic into a thin purée. It should be about as runny as kefir.

Fish in tomato sauce

Pour 2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil into a frying pan and heat it over medium heat.
Pour the tomato purée into the pan, add salt, pepper and a pinch of grated nutmeg. To give the fish tomato sauce a pleasant sweet-and-sour taste, also add 1 tsp of sugar (5 g). Stir.
Bring to a boil under the lid, and only then put the pieces of fish right into the sauce.
Simmer the fish in the sauce, covered, over medium heat for 15 minutes.
Then remove the lid and keep simmering until the sauce thickens, another 5–10 minutes.

Pasta and serving

While the sauce cooks, boil the pasta (penne) in 2 l of boiling water, salted at 7 g per liter. Cook for the time given on the package, until al dente.
Drain the cooked pasta in a colander, let the water run off and add it to the pan with the sauce.
Mix the pasta with the salmon and let it stand, covered, over low heat for 2-3 minutes.
Serve the finished salmon and tomato pasta on a plate, hot. It’s an easy, quick dish that suits breakfast.
The fish sauce has that unique “old” taste, painfully familiar.