Romesco Sauce originates from Catalonia, Spain and is typically made from almonds, pine nuts, and/or hazelnuts, garlic, olive oil, and nyora peppers, a smaller, sweet, dried variety of red bell pepper.
Other common ingredients can include roasted tomatoes, red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar, and onion. Leaves of fennel, mint, or parsley can also be added.
It is most often served with seafood, but can be served with an array of other foods including vegetables, poultry, and beef. It is delicious spread on a toasted or grilled baguette as well.
I made a quick version of this sauce to serve with grilled shrimp and steak the other evening for dinner. I had purchased a small amount of tri-tip and some shrimp from Trader Joe’s so it was surf and turf for dinner, with some Romesco Sauce on the side.
There is plenty of room for flexibility in making this sauce. You can substitute roasted red pepper for the nyora pepper, any one or combination of the nuts mentioned above, your choice of vinegar and herbs, creating a sauce that suits your taste and the contents of your pantry at the moment.
This versatile sauce will keep well in the refrigerator and the flavor will only improve.
Romesco Sauce (adapted from Mark Bittman’s Tri-Tip: A Steak Worth the Hunt)
This ultra-thick, nicely marbled, strongly flavored steak is perfect for roasting, broiling, grilling or a combinbation of stove-top and oven cooking. It’s wonderfully suited to this practically instant version of romesco, the Catalan sauce more commonly used with fish. (If you can’t find tri-tip, use any thick cut of sirloin, or even steaks from the not -too -flavorful fillet, which will be helped immeasurably by the romesco.)
The key to this odd preparation-you make the steak and sauce at the same time, in the same pan-is getting the skillet really hot. Use a cast iron one if you have it. If not just use a good quality pan that can take the heat.
Ingredients
1 pound (26-30 per pound) raw shrimp, peeled, deveined and tail on
1 medium red pepper (or long sweet red pepper)
9-12 grape tomatoes
3 cloves fresh garlic
½ – ¾ cup almonds (roasted and salted)
1 jalapeno, optional
¼ cup red wine vinegar, or ¼ cup red wine vinegar and sherry wine vinegar combined
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, and extra for brushing on shrimp
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Roast a medium red bell or long sweet red pepper directly over a gas flame or uncder a preheated broiler until blackened all over. Transfer to a plate and let cool.
Peel. Discard the seeds and stem, and coarsely chop the pepper.
Heat the skillet until it is very hot. Sear the steak and sauce ingredients-almonds, tomatoes, fresh garlic, and. if you like, jalapeno pepper- until charred.
Transfer the steak to a 500 degree oven to finish cooking. I chose to finish it off on a very hot grill since I was grilling the shrimp as well. Cook to medium rare.
In a food processor or blender, combine the tomato, garlic. peppers, almonds, vinegar, parsley, salt and pepper. With the machine on, slowly blend in the olive oil.
Rinse the shrimp and pat dry. Thread onto four metal skewers(10 to 14 inches). Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place shrimp on barbeque grill over a solid bed of medium-hot coals or medium heat on a gas grill (you can hold your hand at grill level only 3-4 seconds); close lid on gas grill. Cook shrimp, turning once, until opaque but still moist-looking in center of thickest part (cut to test), 3 to 6 minutes total.
Remove steak from the grill and slice it in thick slices against the grain.
Remove shrimp, and place on plate with sliced steak. Serve with Romesco Sauce.
