Romesco
Romesco is easy to mistake for just another pepper paste, but three things define it: the peppers and tomatoes are roasted, the nuts are toasted, and bread is part of the recipe rather than an afterthought. The bread is not a filler — it thickens the sauce and helps bind the oil to the vegetable juices, so it separates less. The last rule is texture: romesco should be coarse, with the almonds clearly perceptible.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Roasting the peppers 35 min
- Soaking the nyora 20 min
- Blending 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneRoast the peppers, tomatoes and garlic
Roast the peppers, tomatoes and unpeeled garlic for 35 minutes at 200°C, until the pepper skins blister and blacken in patches. Move the peppers to a bowl and cover for 10 minutes — the steam lifts the skins. Peel the peppers and tomatoes and squeeze the garlic from its skins.
Ingredients: 3 pcs red peppers · 3 pcs tomatoes · 5 cloves garlic · 2 pcs nyora peppers
Skins blistered and blackened in patches.Soak the nyora and scrape out the flesh
Cover the dried peppers with boiling water for 20 minutes, then split them and scrape the flesh off the skin with a knife. The skin itself is tough and no blender breaks it down — and it is the nyora flesh that gives romesco a depth fresh peppers cannot.
Ingredients: 3 pcs red peppers · 3 pcs tomatoes · 5 cloves garlic · 2 pcs nyora peppers
Flesh scraped from the skin, the skin discarded.Toast the nuts and fry the bread
Toast the almonds and hazelnuts for 10 minutes at 170°C (or in a dry pan, stirring often) and rub the skins off the hazelnuts. Fry the bread until golden in a spoonful of oil taken from the measured amount. Raw nuts give a dull sauce — toasting provides much of romesco's flavour.
Ingredients: 80 g almonds · 60 g hazelnuts · 60 g stale bread
Grind the nuts and bread first, alone
Blitz the nuts with the bread to a coarse, sandy crumb before anything wet goes in. In a wet mixture the nuts will not grind evenly and you are left with large hard pieces alongside paste.
Ingredients: 80 g almonds · 60 g hazelnuts · 60 g stale bread
Add the vegetables and pulse briefly
Add the peeled peppers, tomatoes, garlic, nyora flesh, smoked paprika and salt and pulse a few times. The aim is a thick, clearly grainy sauce, not a smooth cream — in romesco the almonds should be felt between the teeth.
Ingredients: 150 ml olive oil · 3 tbsp sherry vinegar · 1 tsp smoked paprika · 1 tsp salt
Thick and grainy — not a smooth cream.Add the oil in a thin stream
With the processor running, add the rest of the oil slowly over a minute, finishing with the vinegar. The sauce thickens and lightens. Oil added all at once binds less well with the vegetable juices and rises to the top sooner.
Ingredients: 150 ml olive oil · 3 tbsp sherry vinegar · 1 tsp smoked paprika · 1 tsp salt
Before you start
What to eat it with
In Catalonia romesco goes above all with calçots — grilled spring onions. Out of season: grilled vegetables, fish, chicken, eggs, or simply on bread. It is a general-purpose sauce, not the accompaniment to one dish.
A week in the fridge
In a jar under a layer of oil it keeps a week in the fridge and is better after two days — the flavours settle and the garlic mellows. Take it out half an hour before serving, since cold oil congeals.
Without nyora
Ancho or choricero peppers give a similar effect. As a last resort: two extra teaspoons of smoked paprika plus a tablespoon of tomato paste. Not the same, but closer than leaving the ingredient out altogether.