Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

While tinned mackerel and sardines may look like they’re hibernating, they’re actually hard at work, their confident flavors intensifying in that salt and olive oil. In this recipe, that seasoned oil is used to fry capers, char scallions and sauce whole-grain noodles. It’s balanced with spring’s sweetest vegetables: thinly sliced asparagus, crunchy snap peas or snow peas, slackened only slightly by salt and residual heat from the pan. Feel free to trade the scallions for garlic scapes or leeks, add fava beans or peas to the noodles in their final minutes of boiling or top the finished dish with pea greens or soft herbs.

Featured in: How To Turn Any Vegetable Into Pasta Sauce. 

1 1/2 hours, plus about 3 hours’ rising

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