Romesco Sauce

I love Spain. I love the climate, I love the scenery, I love the people, and my goodness I love the food.  What I love most about Spanish cuisine, and Italian, and most Mediterranean cuisines, is that, because of the climate, you just have such wonderful produce, and so the food focuses on simplicity with beautiful ingredients.  There's no need to add so much flavoring to everything to mask the blandness of your sauce or fish or meat.  My aunt always told me that with every dish you cook, 80% of how well it turns out depends on your ingredients, that's why the best Italian food needs to be eaten in Italy, the best Spanish food needs to be eaten in Spain.

Now unfortunately we can't go to Spain to eat Spanish food all the time, so we have to adapt. Here's my adapted version of romesco sauce. It's meant to be made with dried nora peppers, but it can't be found here, so I added some paprika to give a bit of kick to it.  Romesco sauce is so wonderful on everything. Put it on top of your fish, your chicken, your veggies, or even just eat it with bread.

As it's a sauce/dip, please feel free to just wing it with the recipe.  Add a bit more oil if you like it smoother, add more paprika, add more garlic, leave out the peppers. It's all up to you, you have full control over it.

Ingredients

1⁄2 cup almonds 

1⁄2 cup hazelnuts 

2 heads of garlic 

2 tomatoes

1 red paper 

1 slice stale bread 

2 tsp paprika 

Red wine vinegar 

extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Coat the garlic, tomatoes, red pepper and bread in oil and roast in an oven of 180C for 30 minutes. 

Put the nuts in the oven as well for about 15 minutes. Skin the nuts, garlic and tomatoes. Put everything in a food processor and process until smooth.  Alternatively, put it in a morter and pestle if you like it chunky.