Importing a Spanish Spring
Andrew Scrivani for The New York TimesGrilled spring onions with romesco sauce.
By MELISSA CLARK
Published: May 21, 2008
Published: May 21, 2008
RECENTLY at a lunch at the Capafons-Ossó winery in the Priorat region of Spain, I sat with wine experts sipping grenache-and-carignan-based blends. Tasting descriptors dominated the conversation — clove and raspberry, vanilla and coffee, my companions suggested.
Roasted tomato, hazelnuts and garlic, I thought. Everyone else was talking wine. I was thinking lunch, specifically the gloriously thick, ruddy colored romesco sauce that, together with the grilled spring onions called calçots, was the centerpiece of the meal.
I had read about the Catalan feast called calçotada, when towns gathered to devour sweet, scallion-like alliums that have been grilled over a vine-fed fire. The calçots are served blackened from the ashes, and guests slide off the sooty layers before slipping the pearly centers down their throats.
When I was finally invited to a calçotada, I jumped at the chance. As sweet as Vidalias, with a green herby flavor permeated by wood smoke, the calçots were worth the plane ride. But equally compelling was the pungent, nutty romesco sauce. I ate the silky sauce on calçot after calçot. When the calçots ran out I smeared the sauce on bread, then licked the spoon.
As the guests waxed poetic about Capafons-Ossó’s famous Mas de Masos wine, I cornered the romesco-maker, Montserrat Ossó, who owns the winery with her husband, Francesc Capafons Bés, and begged for the recipe.
She ticked off a list of ingredients, including the familiar (raw garlic, garlic confit, nuts, dried tomato and tomato confit, olive oil, vinegar and hard-cooked eggs) and the unexpected (a biscotti-like almond cookie).
Although you can’t get true calçots in Brooklyn, as soon as the first spring onions hit the market, I picked up a bunch and decided to try my hand at romesco.
The first thing I realized, when looking in my notebook, is that it’s a bad idea to take down a recipe after a wine tasting. Although I had an ingredient list, the only technique note read “use coffee grind then mortar pestle.”
For further guidance, I turned to Anya von Bremzen’s book “The New Spanish Table” (Workman, 2005). Since I know Ms. von Bremzen, I figured I could badger her with questions if something was unclear.
First I compared her ingredients with Ms. Ossó’s. They were pretty similar but for the hard-cooked egg and almond cookies that Ms. Ossó called for, and the ñora or ancho peppers, cayenne, onion and bread that Ms. von Bremzen includes. I decided to stick with Ms. Ossó’s ingredients, and use Ms. von Bremzen’s technique.
Ms. von Bremzen’s recipe showed me how to simplify some of the labor-intensive steps that Ms. Ossó mentioned, like making confits of garlic and tomato.
Instead of making confit, Ms. von Bremzen simply browns some garlic to add a layer of caramelization, and slowly sautés her tomatoes to bring out their sweetness. I decided to follow suit, but use the microwave oven to save time.
Once I prepped my garlic and tomatoes, I added everything to the food processor and whirled it into paste. My sauce was decidedly tamer than the one I had lapped up in Spain. It was lacking something, but what?
Re-reading Ms. von Bremzen’s recipe, I was struck by the amount of chili and cayenne she uses. Ms. Ossó’s sauce lacked chilies entirely. (Or maybe, in my vinous fog, I neglected to write them down.) Since I didn’t have any dried chilies on hand, I added a fat pinch of cayenne along with a little more garlic and vinegar for an extra punch.
It was just the jolt my wimpy romesco needed. The sauce’s piercing, garlicky bite was tempered by the richness of olive oil and nuts, and the sweetness of the golden-edged onions.
It wasn’t a calçotada, but a luscious feast nonetheless
Roasted tomato, hazelnuts and garlic, I thought. Everyone else was talking wine. I was thinking lunch, specifically the gloriously thick, ruddy colored romesco sauce that, together with the grilled spring onions called calçots, was the centerpiece of the meal.
I had read about the Catalan feast called calçotada, when towns gathered to devour sweet, scallion-like alliums that have been grilled over a vine-fed fire. The calçots are served blackened from the ashes, and guests slide off the sooty layers before slipping the pearly centers down their throats.
When I was finally invited to a calçotada, I jumped at the chance. As sweet as Vidalias, with a green herby flavor permeated by wood smoke, the calçots were worth the plane ride. But equally compelling was the pungent, nutty romesco sauce. I ate the silky sauce on calçot after calçot. When the calçots ran out I smeared the sauce on bread, then licked the spoon.
As the guests waxed poetic about Capafons-Ossó’s famous Mas de Masos wine, I cornered the romesco-maker, Montserrat Ossó, who owns the winery with her husband, Francesc Capafons Bés, and begged for the recipe.
She ticked off a list of ingredients, including the familiar (raw garlic, garlic confit, nuts, dried tomato and tomato confit, olive oil, vinegar and hard-cooked eggs) and the unexpected (a biscotti-like almond cookie).
Although you can’t get true calçots in Brooklyn, as soon as the first spring onions hit the market, I picked up a bunch and decided to try my hand at romesco.
The first thing I realized, when looking in my notebook, is that it’s a bad idea to take down a recipe after a wine tasting. Although I had an ingredient list, the only technique note read “use coffee grind then mortar pestle.”
For further guidance, I turned to Anya von Bremzen’s book “The New Spanish Table” (Workman, 2005). Since I know Ms. von Bremzen, I figured I could badger her with questions if something was unclear.
First I compared her ingredients with Ms. Ossó’s. They were pretty similar but for the hard-cooked egg and almond cookies that Ms. Ossó called for, and the ñora or ancho peppers, cayenne, onion and bread that Ms. von Bremzen includes. I decided to stick with Ms. Ossó’s ingredients, and use Ms. von Bremzen’s technique.
Ms. von Bremzen’s recipe showed me how to simplify some of the labor-intensive steps that Ms. Ossó mentioned, like making confits of garlic and tomato.
Instead of making confit, Ms. von Bremzen simply browns some garlic to add a layer of caramelization, and slowly sautés her tomatoes to bring out their sweetness. I decided to follow suit, but use the microwave oven to save time.
Once I prepped my garlic and tomatoes, I added everything to the food processor and whirled it into paste. My sauce was decidedly tamer than the one I had lapped up in Spain. It was lacking something, but what?
Re-reading Ms. von Bremzen’s recipe, I was struck by the amount of chili and cayenne she uses. Ms. Ossó’s sauce lacked chilies entirely. (Or maybe, in my vinous fog, I neglected to write them down.) Since I didn’t have any dried chilies on hand, I added a fat pinch of cayenne along with a little more garlic and vinegar for an extra punch.
It was just the jolt my wimpy romesco needed. The sauce’s piercing, garlicky bite was tempered by the richness of olive oil and nuts, and the sweetness of the golden-edged onions.
It wasn’t a calçotada, but a luscious feast nonetheless
Origin information: The New York Times
