Romesco sauce is served with fish or chicken if you’re not veggie but I like it with tortilla (Spanish egg and potato omelette), a dip for bread or for any kind of roasted vegetable. Honestly, it’d be good with anything–it’s rich, garlicky, tangy and a little spicy if you like. This was my first time making it and it turned out great (yay! success!), but I did have to correct myself: I started with red bell peppers, but it’s ñora chilies I needed, not the red peppers. I used a dried ancho chili as a replacement for the nora chilies and tossed one in at the end. Delicioso!

Ingredients
for 2 jars of romesco

12 almonds
10 hazelnuts (or pine nuts)
1 bulb of garlic
2 tomatoes
2 fire roasted red peppers and 1 dried ancho chili (or 2-3 ñora chilies)
1/2 to 1 cup of spanish olive oil
1/4 cup nice vinegar
salt and pepper
1 dried red chili or 1 fresh jalapeno (optional)
1 piece of crusty bread, fried in olive oil

1. Start by roasting the bulb of garlic in its skin and the nuts in a baking tray. (The tomatoes can be roasted as well, but I didn’t.) The nuts need to be lightly toasted and the garlic should be completely soft. It won’t take long so take care to not over cook and dry out the garlic. You should be able to squeeze the cloves right out of their skins and into the blender (or food processor).

2. Fry the bread in olive oil till crispy on both sides. Then fry the dried ancho chili in plenty of oil on both sides till soft.

3. If you have a food processor, grind the bread and the nuts first or put everything into a blender and pulse until smooth. Add more salt and pepper and olive oil if needed.

4. Keep for a day to let the flavors develop.