Leeks / Spring Onions / Calçots with Catalan Romesco Sauce
A messy Catalan tradition given the Capsule Pantry treatment
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Spain is incredibly good at using food to bring people together. And if you’re in Catalunya during the winter, the most convivial dish of all is calçots, blackened on a charcoal grill and eaten with Romesco sauce. Which is exactly what I ate whilst in Barcelona this weekend.
Calçots are intensely Catalan. They’re an allium and look like a cross between a spring onion (scallion) and a leek. The time to eat them is during Autumn and Winter when people hold Calçotadas - essentially a calçot party - in homes throughout the Catalan countryside.
Someone fires up a charcoal grill and bangs the calçots onto flames until they’re black on the outside. They’re then wrapped in newspaper and placed between two roof tiles to allow their residual heat to cook themselves through.
To eat, you peel off the charred outside and dip the soft, sweet, calçots into Romesco sauce, an impossibly delicious concoction of roasted red bell peppers or tomatoes, bread, almonds, olive oil, and vinegar.
You then proceed to shove the whole thing in your mouth:
Everyone sits around long outside tables, the wine flows and the calçots are eaten over and over and over.
Alas, my Catalan friend - who has promised me a Calçotada with his friends - was not around whilst I was in Barcelona this weekend, so we headed to a restaurant he recommended instead. We weren’t disappointed.
I’ve made romesco sauce more times than I care to count. It’s amazing with calçots - or leeks or spring onions but works in myriad other ways too. As always, there are plenty of ways you can make this recipe your own and adapt it to what you have in your storecupboard.
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Serves 4
Calçots, spring onions or very thin leeks, trimmed - around 6 per person.
Romesco sauce
4 fresh tomatoes or 2 red bell peppers (or a mix of both)
2 slices good quality white bread (ideally a bit stale), diced
2 garlic cloves peeled and sliced lengthways
Approximately 20 almonds, blanched and skinned
Sherry vinegar or lemon juice
Good quality olive oil
Salt and pepper
Make the sauce
Heat up your broiler.
Stick the tomatoes and / or pepper under the broiler, turning every 10-15 minutes until blackened on all sides.
If using bell peppers, place them in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for around 10 minutes to help them become easier to skin. Remove the skin and chop roughly.
If using tomatoes, leave to cool, remove the skins and roughly chop, removing the seeds.
Heat around 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan until medium-hot. Add the garlic, fry them until golden, then remove and reserve. This flavors the oil.
Add the almonds to the oil, frying until golden, then remove and reserve.
Finally, add the bread to the oil, frying until you have crispy nuggets of fried bread.
Place the almonds, bread, and garlic into a food processor or whatever you use to hand blend in. Season generously with sea salt, a little black pepper, a splash of sherry vinegar or lemon juice (around a tablespoon), and around 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
Blitz until reasonably smooth.
Taste for flavor balance. You may need to add more acid or olive oil. If it’s too thick, add some water a little at a time. You want the consistency to be similar to hummus.
The romesco sauce will last a few days in the fridge.
And now for the calçots/leeks/spring onions
Heat up your charcoal grill. Wait until the charcoals are white then add small sticks to make flames.
Put your grate on top and add the calçots. Turn them until they’re blackened. Wrap them in newspaper or foil, keep in a warm place for 20-30 minutes for them to cook through. Here’s a good video about how to do this.
Dietary restrictions
The romesco sauce is vegan and vegetarian-friendly.
Use gluten-free bread to make it GF.
Omit the almonds if you need to make it nut-free.
The grilling
If you don’t have a charcoal grill, you can use your broiler. Turn it up high and grill your leeks / calçots / spring onions until they’re golden.
You can also roast the vegetables in a 180C/350F oven for around 20-30 minutes (depending on thickness) until golden. Don’t forget to oil and season with salt.
If you have thin spring onions, you could also do this on the stove. Heat a frying pan until hot, add some oil, place the spring onions in, and fry until cooked.
You may not have to peel the outer layer if you use these methods.
The vegetables (and meat)
Although I love using alliums, romesco goes with almost all vegetables. You could make a crudité platter with raw carrots, bell peppers, or celery sticks and dip them in.
You could roast carrots and put the romesco on the side.
You could even use the romesco as a sauce for roasted chicken, steak, or pork chops.
The romesco sauce
If you don’t have a grill, you could roast the tomatoes and / or peppers.
If you don’t have an oven but do have a gas hob, you could blacken the vegetables over the flame, then peel as per the original recipe.
Otherwise you can fry the tomaotes and / or peppers on your stove. Roughly chop them and place them in a hot frying pan with a little olive oil. Fry for 5 minutes or so.
Almonds can be substituted with hazelnuts or cashew nuts.
Some romesco sauces skip frying the nuts, garlic, and bread and use them raw. Whilst I personally love the toasty flavor the frying gives to the sauce, if you’re stuck for time, you could absolutely skip it.
Leftover calcots, spring onions or leeks can form the basis of many soups.
Leftover romesco sauce is delicious with eggs for breakfast. Or you could stir into pasta.