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Cataluña

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Calçots amb romesco

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Cataluña’s calçotada brings flame-roasted onions and a nut-and-pepper sauce to a shared table. This chapter explores calçots with romesco, with guidance for the ingredients available to a home cook.

La Gente

Char the outer layers, allow the onions to steam, then peel to reach the tender center. The sauce adds acidity and body. The traditional calçot sauce is often called salvitxada, a close relative of romesco with its own variations.

Sabor

Cataluña cooks with olive oil, garlic, nuts, and the ember. Tomato and ñora give the red. Almonds and hazelnuts give the body. Parsley and bay are the herbs. Pimentón stands in when the ñora is missing, and a little smoke from the fire does the rest. Sweetness comes from the roasted onion and the tomato, and heat almost never appears.

Spice DNA · Smoke high · Sweet medium · Herb low · Heat none · Acid medium

Seasonings to explore

Minced Garlic in Olive Oil. In the romesco and rubbed on the bread. Adds a savory garlic base.
Paprika. Pimentón dulce, the honest stand-in for the ñora's pulp when a Spanish market is far.
Smoked Paprika. A pinch in the romesco for the fire, if the fire is not real.
Parsley flakes. In the romesco for the ones who add green.
Black Pepper, ground. A little in the sauce.
Bay leaves, whole. For the stews of the mountain, not for today.

Ripe tomatoes, a head of garlic, blanched almonds and hazelnuts, a slice of stale bread, sherry or red wine vinegar, good olive oil, ñora peppers if you can find them, a crusty loaf, and vine prunings or hardwood for the fire. Badia does not sell the ñora. The paprika is the fallback and the page says so.

Cocina

Calçots amb romesco

Onions charred in the embers and eaten with the hands, with the sauce of the Tarragona fishermen. Wear old clothes.

Serves 6

Romesco

4 ripe tomatoes
1 head of garlic, plus 1 tbsp Badia Minced Garlic in Olive Oil
2 ñora peppers, soaked 30 minutes and scraped for their pulp, or 1 tbsp Badia Paprika plus ½ tsp Badia Smoked Paprika
½ cup blanched almonds, toasted
½ cup hazelnuts, toasted and rubbed of their skins
1 thick slice of stale bread, fried in olive oil
¼ cup sherry vinegar
¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp Badia Black Pepper, ground
1 tbsp Badia Parsley flakes, optional
Salt

The calçots

36 calçots, or 36 large spring onions or thin leeks
Newspaper

Pa amb tomàquet

A crusty loaf, sliced and toasted over the fire
Very ripe tomatoes, halved
A garlic clove, halved
Olive oil, salt

Roast for the sauce. Roast the tomatoes and the whole head of garlic in a 400°F oven or in the embers until soft and blistered, 30 to 40 minutes. Peel both.
The romesco. In a processor or a large mortar, grind the nuts and the fried bread to a coarse meal. Add the roasted tomato, the roasted garlic squeezed from its skins, the minced garlic, the ñora pulp or paprikas, vinegar, pepper, and salt. Blend, then pour in the oil in a stream until it is thick and rough. Parsley if using. Taste. It should be nutty, sharp, and a little sweet. Let it sit an hour.
The fire. A hot bed of hardwood or vine-prune embers with a grate over it.
Char. Lay the calçots across the grate in a single layer. Turn them with tongs until the outside is fully black on all sides, 10 to 15 minutes. Do not undercook; the char is what steams the inside.
Wrap. Stack them in newspaper, roll it closed, and let them steam 15 minutes.
The bread, meanwhile. Toast the slices over the fire. Rub each with the cut garlic and then with the cut face of a tomato, hard, until the bread is red and wet. Oil. Salt.
Eat. Bib on. Hold the green end, strip the black with the other hand, dip the white deep in the romesco, tilt back, and lower it in. Repeat until the tile is empty. Then the lamb and the butifarra, if you have them, with the rest of the romesco.

Pueblos de Cataluña

Barcelona · Gràcia · Sants · Badalona · L'Hospitalet · Sabadell · Terrassa · Sitges · Vilafranca del Penedès · Tarragona · Valls · Reus · Cambrils · Salou · Tortosa · Girona · Figueres · Olot · Cadaqués · Lleida · Manresa · Vic