Sheet Pan

Walking Spanish Down the Hall Part 2; Homage to Catalonia

by:
May 28, 2010
4.5
2 Ratings
  • Serves Oh, I don't know
Author Notes

The heavy lifting part here comes with making the romesco, which is actually easy but requires attention. You will need some dried peppers; which could mean ancho, cascobel, guajillo or all or some in combination. Just mind your Scoville units which should be on the package. A romesco is not a "set your mouth on fire" sauce. You will soak the peppers and stem and seed them. Downhill from here. - pierino —pierino

Test Kitchen Notes

The Romesco sauce is amazing. (I could only get dried chipotle peppers so I used one and a roasted red bell pepper, which turned out to be a good decision. It was pretty hot.) I had grilled some fish also and we were layering it all over the fish as well as eating it with the green beans. (You really didn't want to be on the bike next to me in spin class the next morning!) Grilling the onions was also really great -- we loved the smoky sweetness and will do that again and again. Pierino suggests blanching the green beans but I recommend that they be sauteed or also grilled with the onions -- to bring out their sweetness. - drbabs —The Editors

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 2 or 4 dried peppers, your choice
  • 2 slices stale, crusty bread
  • 3/4 cup, light Spanish olive oile
  • 3-4 ounces marcona almonds
  • 1 tbs sherry vinegar
  • 4 cloves garlic peeled, and coarse chopped
  • sea salt
  • 1/2 pound fresh picked or from the market, green beans
  • spring onions, ramps or calcots
Directions
  1. Start your fire if you are cooking outside.
  2. For your romesco, cut the tops off of the peppers which you have soaked for about two hours. Seed them and cut them roughly.
  3. Lightly toast the almonds. You can do this on the stovetop or in a sheet pan in the oven. I told you this was easy.
  4. Cut up your dried out bread into cubes, and then chop the garlic.
  5. Breathe deeply, this is not that hard
  6. Place above ingredients in your food processor, and drizzle in olive oil and vinegar. Hit this with sea salt and give it a spanking. There's your sauce.
  7. Blanche your green beans in boiling water for perhaps two minutes and plunge into cold water to set color. Drain.
  8. If you are using spring onions or calcots, give them a quick fire treatment on either a wood grill or an inside grill pan. You'll want some blackness on them.
  9. This should all be close to room temperature at the end. Plate the beans and onions with romesco on the side. There you go. You can do this, right? Just taste for salt and pepper at the end.
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pierino
Standup commis flâneur, and food historian. Pierino's background is in Italian and Spanish cooking but of late he's focused on frozen desserts. He is now finishing his cookbook, MALAVIDA! Can it get worse? Yes, it can. Visit the Malavida Brass Knuckle cooking page at Facebook and your posts are welcome there.

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6 Reviews

Sagegreen
Sagegreen August 13, 2010
Enjoying your annotations, insights, and wit: all with such delicious edge!
 
thirschfeld
thirschfeld August 13, 2010
Made this last Sunday. What a great dish and we all loved the Romesco. All the flavors come together nicely and I think it is even better after it sits for a night in the fridge.
 
pierino
pierino August 13, 2010
Thank you TH, and I totally agree with you on the overnight thing. There are a lot of things that improve with a good night's sleep.
 
pierino
pierino June 12, 2010
First, Drbabs thanks for giving this a field test. Chipotle is a very aggressively flavored pepper, and NO! Bobby Flay, it doesn't taste like a spicy raisin. Dried anchos are probably your best choice. Something in the neighborhood of 4,000 Scoville units of heat. If I ever find a source for good quality dried Spanish peppers I'll pass it on. For a little perspective some dried peppers can get up to 40,000 Scovilles. Now that's hot!
 
drbabs
drbabs June 12, 2010
Yes, fortunately the Scoville numbers were posted and you were clear that it wasn't supposed to kill you with heat. But I went to two stores and couldn't find Anchos, so I used what I found. (The roasted bell pepper added a nice smokiness anyway--don't know if that's authentic, but it was good.) My husband and I both LOVED the Romesco--I will make it again.
 
Amber O.
Amber O. June 10, 2010
Romesco Sauce is indeed a wonderful thing! Check out my recipe for Spanish Garlic Soup with Romesco Sauce for a nice use of this sauce (which uses the more traditional hazelnuts).