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Monday, September 25, 2017

INTERNATIONAL: SPAIN: Catalonia: Sauces 1: Romesco - recipes, gifs,video and more!

Romesco   


Romesco preparation and finished product in GIF above

Romesco Uses Below



Romesco, a rustic, ruddy-hued, all-purpose sauce from Catalonia, is served with fish, poultry, meats and vegetables, and in stews. In that northeastern part of Spain, eating the seasonal grilled spring onions called calçots without romesco for dipping is unthinkable.
There is no standard recipe or even ingredient list for romesco. It invariably includes ripe tomatoes — we did say summer or early fall? — garlic, olive oil, almonds or hazelnuts, bread and mild chiles, but the proportions can vary. It is not particularly spicy, unless you want it to be. The nuts and bread thicken it and give it texture.

Uses:
  • grilled onions (calcots)
  • alongside portions of daurade, a Mediterranean fish
  • great as a dip for crudités
  • thicken soups
  • “punch up” a kind of Majorcan ratatouille served with red snapper
  • with lamb
  •  fold into rice and noodle dishes.
  •  a dressing for bitter greens like escarole or frisée
  • garnish for roasted potatoes and onions
  • romesco pasta sauce


In the summer or early fall, think of slathering it on a burger or using it as a dip for fries or to replace butter on corn on the cob, as my granddaughters did when I tested the recipe. It is as versatile as mayonnaise, with even more personality, and keeps for weeks in the refrigerator.
  • But like professionals, the amateur cook should plan to make it, not buy it. There is no supermarket gold standard, as there is for mayonnaise. Romesco sold in small jars in Spain, or imported and sold here, is less vibrant than anything you can make at home.
  • Fairway uses ancho and chipotle chiles. But in Tarragona, the city south of Barcelona where the sauce is thought to have originated, the chile of choice is a dark, round, dried ñora.
    Mr. Solé i Torné uses romesco as a condiment, in salad dressings and notably to thicken sauces for seafood, as in a casserole of fish baked over potatoes, or simmered in a dish of skate with clams and mussels. His own recipe will vary according to the application.
    Some cooks and chefs add wine, onions, roasted peppers like piquillos or red bell peppers, vinegar and Spanish paprika or cayenne. The ingredients are always cooked before being blended. Most chefs grill and roast them. Mr. Solé i Torné prefers frying, which for home cooks is an easier method than roasting batches of each ingredient.
    Either way, it’s a typical Mediterranean mixture, originally pounded in a mortar, like Italian pesto,
    and French rouille
    and tapenade.
     Near Tarragona, Victor Gilgado Martos, a local chef, demonstrated making romesco using a mortar in a farmhouse kitchen while the calçots
    were grilling outdoors. But halfway through, he picked up a hand blender. So it goes.
    Traditionally, fishermen made it to eat with seafood. But when? Some say its origins are Roman, from the time that Tarragona was a provincial capital of the empire. Others credit the Moors. Mr. Solé i Torné said that “rumiskal” — a word meaning to mix, from the Moorish era in Spain — may point to Arab origins for the sauce.
    Nonetheless, it took the arrival of tomatoes and chiles in Spain in the 16th century for romesco to acquire its present-day character.
    And now, with a growing interest outside Spain, romesco’s uses and variations are bound to keep multiplying.










Romesco ideas for serving





















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