Olive, Preserved Lemon and Tomato Pasta with Pine Nuts

This is a quick and easy dish which can easily be adapted to suit what you have in your cupboards. For example, I have used preserved lemon but you can swap that for capers, I have used a tin of cherry tomatoes but you can use any tinned tomatoes or a handful of fresh, and you can, of course, use whatever pasta or noodles you like.

From cupboard to table in around 20 minutes, this dish is perfect any night of the week. Perfectly balanced with sweet onion and garlic, salty anchovies and olives, tangy preserved lemon and earthy toasted pine nuts, each mouthful will delight your taste buds. If you like, you can add a little chilli flakes into the sauce with your tomatoes for an extra kick.

Olive, Preserved Lemon and Tomato Pasta with Pine Nuts

Serves 4

1 tbsp oil 

1 onion, finely chopped 

3 garlic cloves, crushed 

½ tbsp tomato purée 

6 anchovy fillets 

400g tin cherry tomatoes 

1 tbsp dried mixed herbs

1 preserved lemon, finely chopped (seeds discarded)

100g pitted green olives, roughly chopped

225g spaghetti or vermicelli pasta

50g toasted pine nuts

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a low-medium heat and cook the onion with a big pinch of salt for 8 minutes or until softened and lightly golden. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more. Add the tomato purée and anchovies and cook for a further 5 minutes, breaking up the anchovies with your spatula or spoon until they dissolve.

Add the cherry tomatoes and 100ml cold water, mix well and bring up to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a big pan of heavily salted water for 7 minutes.

Stir the preserved lemon and olives into the sauce, taste and season with salt and pepper. Put the cooked paste in the sauce together with a good spoonful or two of the pasta water. Gently toss everything together - I find tongs are best for this. Then scatter over the pine nuts and serve.