Description: It can be either a main dish or a side dish and you may use different types of pasta such as Tortiglioni or Conchiglie rigati. This dish can be served hot or cold. Some salads go really well with this as well. Tuna-Mayo is a popular ingredient in Japan. I personally love Tuna-mayo onigiri rice ball 🙂 This was applied to pasta this time. Hope you enjoy some popular Japanese flavour.
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• Fusilli pasta – 140g
• Aubergine – 400g or 2 pieces
• Tuna – break into small chunks, 1 tin (use no drain, if not remove oil before cooking) or 110g
• Garlic – chopped, 2 cloves
• Olive oil – 1 tablespoon
• Black pepper – ground, ½ teaspoon
• Salt – 2 dashes
• Mayonnaise – 1 tablespoon
• Chive – chopped, ½ tablespoon

Method

1. Cook the spaghetti until al dente in plenty of boiling water with salt. Meanwhile, add tuna, mayonnaise and black pepper to a small bowl and mix well.
2. When pasta is almost cooked, heat the extra virgin olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan, then add the garlic over low heat for 30 seconds, stirring regularly.
3. Stir in the aubergine with 50 mL water, salt and black pepper. Change the heat to medium then close the lid.
4. Once the aubergine is cooked, the tuna mix and hot drained pasta to frying pan. Mix well. If it needs a little more moisture, add a splash of the pasta-cooking water.
5. Sprinkle black pepper. Add chopped chive on top.

To serve: Sprinkle additional ground black pepper.

Nutritional Values Per Serving

Kcal	Protein	Fat	Carbs	Fibre	Sugars	Salt	Saturated Fat	Vitamin B3	Vitamin B12	Vitamin E
515.3	25.6g	18.3g	64.4g	8.7g	9.6g	1.1g	1.7g	12.8mg	1.2μg	2.1mg
25.8%	51.3%	26.1%	24.8%	29.2%	10.7%	17.6%	8.7%	98.2%	81.2%	70.0%

Nutritional Tips

Tuna-Mayo is one of the popular ingredients in Japan and I just love the flavour so much. I discovered this in one of the convenience stores called “LAWSON” when I was a kid and it is still my favourite tuna-mayo onigiri ball today. Well, to me, my grandmother’s hand-made onigiri rice ball with tuna cannot be surpassed by any onigiri rice ball in the world!

I am not here to advertise, but I would like to share a bit of Japan’s culture today. There are many convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Family Mart, and Mini Stop … they usually all have tuna-mayo rice balls. These shops are open 24/7 and located all over the place in Japan. That’s how popular it is in Japan. I know there is a claim that ready-made meals are unhealthy due to the content of preservatives, salt, flavour enhancers etc etc, but I am just introducing some facts from the Japanese culture.

Mayonnaise in general is fatty, but adding a bit to the dish is not going to ruin your diet. The combination of tuna-mayo is not bad at all. Looking at other factors, you can have a good amount of vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin E and phosphorus, some vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, iron, and folates as well. Alternatively, there are some mayonnaises with half calories, so you may try one of these ones if you are concerned about the fat content and calories.