Grilled Chicken with Romescu

I love trying new things when cooking, new flavors and textures, new foods and new cuisines. This past week I experimented with a new sauce, romescu sauce. This sauce is one of the many delicious looking sauces in a great cookbook I have, The Sauce Book by Paul Gaylor. Just flipping through this book is so interesting. It is set up by region/country and I love seeing what people eat all around the world. I've been eyeing this romescu for a while now, it has pretty simple ingredients, and they're all ingredients that I love; roasted red peppers, tomatoes, paprika, almonds, garlic, what's not to love! Boy was I right, this sauce was absolutely delicious, the perfect accompaniment some summer grilled chicken.

This cookbook has a little blurb about each sauce before the ingredient list. I love this because it gives you a little idea what you can do with each sauce. Before the romescu the author writes:

One of the great Spanish sauces, dating back hundreds of years to Tarragona 
in the Catalonia region. Whether made with hazelnuts or almonds, it never fails 
to impress. I think I've served it with just about every type of grilled fish, 
vegetable, meat, even fried eggs - utterly versatile. 

I agree, it is utterly versatile, and super simple to make. I had it with chicken one night, on a sandwich as a great spread the next night, and a few days later as sauce on a grilled Spanish inspired pizza. And there are so many other ways it could be used. This is definitely one sauce I will be making again. It's so easy, and you don't even have to cook anything (except the pepper if you don't have any roasted red peppers on hand)

Just making this one recipe got me thinking about Spanish cuisine, and I realized how little I know about Spanish food. I can only name a few Spanish dishes off the top of my head (paella anyone?). This recipe has therefore inspired me to try out some other Spanish foods. This is my goal for the summer, learn about and how to cook Spanish food, wish me luck!

Romescu
From The Sauce Book by Paul Gayler
Ingredients

• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 slice white bread, cut into cubes
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 cup almonds or hazelnuts, lightly toasted
• 1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes (or 1 dried red chile)
• 1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
• 12 ounces roasted red peppers
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 8 ounces tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded and chopped
• salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Directions
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan, add the bread cubes and fry until golden. Add the garlic, almonds or hazelnuts, red pepper flakes, and paprika, and cook for another 30 seconds.

Transfer to a blender and add the roasted red peppers and vinegar. Blitz to a pulp. Using the feeder tube and with the motor running, gradually trickles in the remaining olive oil.

Add the tomatoes, blitz again, and season to taste.