Salsa per calçots

ENRIC IBÁÑEZ RECIPE

• 10 tomatoes, 8-9 of them cooked in the oven and the rest peeled but fresh.

• 200g of toasted peeled almond (you can toast it yourself with a pan).

• Same 60 g of toasted hazelnuts.

• 1 and a half pack of garlic cooked in the oven.

• Rest of the raw garlic, you can add it at the end and try if it is enough (consider that, after some hours, the garlic taste is going to be harder).

• "Ñora" or "pimiento choricero": if you buy the dry vegetable, you need to hydratate it with water for 24 hours and peel it (extracting the substance from the peel with a spoon). You can buy it already prepared.

• 1 slice of toasted bread.

• Black pepper, vinegar, oil and salt to give it the texture and the saltiness you prefer.

Some tips:

• First use a hand blender for grinding the almonds and hazelnuts. You need to convert them into something similar to peanut butter in order to integrate it better.

• Before cooking tomatoes in the oven, mark with a knife a "cross" in their skin in order to peel them properly.

• Add some oil in the tomatoes for a more homogeneous cooking, and also add to the sauce all the oil + liquid they loose once heated.

• Remove the "central" part of the raw garlic you add in order to avoid this undesired smell in the breath.

• Once you peel the tomatoes, and add them to the mixture, add the salt so they will loose more liquid and impregnate everything.

• Once you have all the ingredients, use the hand blender to get something homogeneous. You can taste it and add salt/vinegar/garlic/oil until you reach the desired flavor and texture.

• You can scale the recipe by multiplying the amounts of each ingredient. With these quantities, you generate the amount of sauce I brough today.

This is my family recipe, past through generations, but there are as many variations as people cooking this sauce. For me it is an honor if you prepare it, and specially if you bring this amazing sauce to your families and friends over the world.