Lemon-Caper Pasta Salad

Ligurian olives, roasted string beans & garlic, sun dried tomatoes

Not enough praise is given to the magic of hot & cold contrasts, culinarily speaking. When someone says “sizzling piece of meat & cold fussili, " I hear “passion & comfort.” Not that people say stuff like that unprompted, but if they would, that's what I'd hear. This super fresh, simple yet complex, light yet filling, cozy yet gourmet-as-fuck pasta dish is sure to arouse the worldliest of taste buds, as well as the naive ones. For more juju, be sure to use bronze-cut pasta. With simple dishes such as this one, details matter even more.

SHOP THE WHOLE-CUT LOIN

Time: 20 min // Serves 1-2

INGREDIENTS

• 100g Fusilli pasta
• 1/2 cup of parsley, chopped finely
• 2 tbsp of capers
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice
• 1 cup of chopped zucchini OR a big handful of string beans (with hard end stems removed)
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, crushed a roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp of sun dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp of Ligurian olives in oil (or something similar, like kalamata. Just not canned, unless you really like canned olives.), roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup of feta-like cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup Fresh tomato, chopped into small chunks
• A handful of baby spinach
• A generous drizzle of olive oil
• Salt & pepper, adjust to taste

Marbles’ Chunks:
• a subjective amount of Marbles meat, sliced into bite sized chunks
• 1/4 tsp of garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp of onion powder
• 1/4 tsp of fresh or dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Oil for cooking

Method

First, cook the pasta for as long as the instructions on your pasta's packaging instruct. When the pasta is done cooking, drain it, run cool water over it so it cools and stops cooking. Drizzle some olive oil over it and add a dash of salt, and set it aside.
Heat the oven to 200C (390F). Take a small pan and cover the bottom with baking paper. Add the zucchini or string beans and garlic to the pan. Roast for 15 minutes, or until the string beans are cooked through. Then remove them from the oven. (Alternatively, you can easily sauté the veggies and garlic on a small pan. Whatever makes the most sense for you.)
If you have a small food processor, add the parsley leaves, capers, and lemon juice to it and blend them together to make a textured sauce. If you don't have a food processor, simply chop the parsley and capers finely by hand and add them to the pasta, along with the lemon juice.
For the Marbles, take your meat chunks and put them in a bowl. Add a dash of olive oil, some garlic powder, onion powder, salt, white pepper, and thyme to the meat chunks, and gently toss them until they are evenly coated. Then, heat a non-stick pan to medium heat. When the pan is hot, add a dash of oil. When the oil is hot, add the meat to the pan. Sear the meat for about 2-3 minutes on each side, until the meat is nicely toasted and crispy. When the meat is toasted to perfection, turn off the stove.
Add your pasta, roasted string beans and garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, feta, fresh tomato, capers, parsley, and lemon juice (if you haven't already) and spinach to a medium-sized bowl and mix well! Top it off with sizzling juicy marble chunks. And adjust the salt and pepper to your taste buds' liking!

NOTE: You can absolutely make this pasta salad in advance and eat it when you're ready! It might honestly be even better on day 2. We do, however, highly recommend you add the meat at the time you want to eat it to receive the most favorable experience.