How to make old fashioned romesco dip?

Romesco Dip

Spanish old-fashioned romesco dip…why not?

It’s pepper season now, so it’s worth trying out this recipe.  It’s the right moment to enjoy its full taste. Fresh markets all over the world are full of them, and I am sure that they are all so good, simply delicious…

I am also sure that you already made your winter preserves with traditional flavors of your country of origin. I made ajvar, roasted peppers …and other traditional things from Serbia.

You can eat this amazing traditional Spanish sauce with red roasted peppers in so many different ways.

Romesco sauce is also known as Catalan sauce.

How to make a traditional Spanish romesco dip?

First, you will need red peppers.  At the fresh market, you can also take those that at first glance do not look very nice and for sure those that are cheaper.

Roast them in the oven or better on the grill if you have that option. Both sides of the peppers have to be roasted.

I do not know how you feel about the smell from the oven, but I simply adore it. The smell of roasted coffee and peppers is so amazing 🙂  Love it!

For this step, you need about 20 minutes at a temperature of 180-200 ° C

When they are baked, place them in a nylon freezer bag, and let them cool down, so that they can be easily cleaned.

It’s optional to bake some hot peppers together with red peppers if you want to substitute dry chili that goes into this recipe.

For the Spanish romesco dip, you also need hazelnuts, almonds … I added a little bit of walnut, again traditional home-grown 🙂

It would be good to somehow peel off the hazelnut, almond and also the walnut skin. If you don’t like doing it that’s ok … grind them together with skin … it will not tingle in the throat 🙂

If you have decided to remove the skin, these are some options:

Almonds

Buy raw (with skin) almonds and blanch them into the mixture of boiled water and 3 tablespoons of baking soda. Or a much better option – hop to the market and buy already blanched almonds without skin 🙂 .

Hazelnuts and walnuts, and also almonds

Put the nuts in the dry kitchen cloth, tie it at the top and roll it on a flat surface

Then, fry all those nuts in the pan for 1-2 minutes, put them in a blender and grind to get the Spanish romesco dip.

You also need tomato…I used the home-grown cherry…but you can use the regular home-grown as well 🙂 Or even better – type oxheart, it’s a bit sweeter 🙂

When all this is done, put it in the oven together with the peppers and bake it…the flavour is going to be fantastic.

The garlic also goes into the oven…to boost the flavour.

Having peeled peppers, garlic and tomato after baking, put them into blender and grind.

Then comes the part that doesn’t go into the pan or the oven but directly into the ground roasted peppers, tomato and garlic. As for the vinegar…I put the rice one, because it’s weaker, but you can also put balsamic (the white one, you can buy it in regular stores, the brand is Ponti) or the apple vinegar…

Don’t forget olive oil, as an additional Mediterranean flavour.

When you mix all the baked and unbaked ingredients you’ll get two jars just like these:

It goes well:

1. with overbaked rye or white bread, as you like it
2. with sardines, as was my choice, or with some other fish
3. with pasta, it can pose as Italian pesto
4. with grilled turkey or chicken
5. as a tortilla chip dip
6. or with fresh vegetables

If you put it in a glass jar you can keep it for up to seven days in the fridge.

Enjoy these Spanish flavours 🙂