Salsa Vizcaína

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide heavy sauté pan or casserole, 28 to 30cm
• •Heatproof bowl and small plate for soaking the peppers
• •Teaspoon with a firm edge for scraping the pepper pulp
• •Immersion blender or countertop blender
• •Fine-mesh sieve and ladle

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the peppers

   Put the stemmed and seeded choriceros in a heatproof bowl and cover them with the warm water. Set a small plate on top to keep them submerged and leave them for 60 minutes, until the skins bend easily and the flesh feels soft. Do not use boiling water; it pulls out more bitterness than you need.

   Using jarred carne de pimiento choricero? Measure 120g and begin with the onions. Choose a jar whose main ingredient is choricero pepper, without tomato or added spices.
2. 2

   Scrape the pulp

   Drain the peppers and discard the soaking water. Lay one pepper skin-side down on a board and draw the edge of a teaspoon firmly across the inside, collecting every bit of soft red pulp. Repeat with the remaining peppers and discard the bare skins. You should have roughly 100 to 120g of pulp. Pésalo, no lo adivines: if you have much less, add enough plain jarred choricero pulp to reach 100g.

3. 3

   Sweat the onions

   Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy pan over low heat. Add the onions and 4g of the salt, turn them through the oil, and cover the pan. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring every five minutes, until the onions collapse and release their liquid. Uncover and continue cooking very gently for 45 to 55 minutes, stirring more often near the end, until dark gold, sticky, and almost jammy, with no crisp or black edges.

   If the onions catch before they soften, add 15ml of the measured stock and scrape the bottom. Do not raise the heat. The slow cooking is where the sweetness comes from.
4. 4

   Build the sauce

   Add the sliced garlic and cook for 5 minutes without letting it colour. Stir in the torn bread and cook for another 3 minutes, turning it through the onion and oil. Add the scraped choricero pulp and cook for 2 minutes over low heat, just until its colour deepens and it smells sweet. Do not fry it hard or it turns bitter.

5. 5

   Simmer with stock

   Pour in 400ml of the stock and stir well, loosening everything from the bottom of the pan. Bring it to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for 20 minutes. The bread should disappear into the sauce and the onions should be tender enough to crush against the side of the pan.

6. 6

   Blend and strain

   Take the pan off the heat and blend for a full 2 minutes with an immersion blender, until no pieces of onion remain. Press the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean saucepan. Add the remaining stock a little at a time until the sauce coats the back of a spoon but still falls from it in a slow ribbon. This final straining gives salsa vizcaína its proper smooth body.

7. 7

   Season and settle

   Return the sauce to low heat for 3 minutes, stirring so it does not catch. Taste before adding the remaining 2g salt, especially if the sauce will meet salt cod. Let it rest for 10 minutes. A little olive oil may rise and glisten at the surface; stir it back in before serving.

Chef Tips

• •Dried choriceros should smell sweet and faintly smoky, with flexible red-brown skins rather than dusty, grey ones. Jarred carne de pimiento choricero is a sound alternative because it is the same pepper already scraped. Use 120g and check the label for added salt before seasoning.
• •If choriceros and their jarred pulp are both unavailable, soak and scrape 12 dried ñoras. A Spanish kitchen would reach for these before an unrelated chilli. Ñoras are smaller and fruitier, so the finished sauce will be brighter, slightly sweeter, and less full-bodied.
• •Cebolla morada de Zalla, the local purple onion from Bizkaia, is sweet and well suited to this sauce. Ordinary mild yellow onions work. Avoid very sharp red onions unless you can give them the full slow cooking, or their edge will remain in the finished sauce.
• •Match the stock to the plate. Use unsalted fish stock or water for bacalao, and a light meat stock for meatballs, tripe, tongue, or pigs' trotters. Strong commercial stock overwhelms the choricero and brings more salt than the sauce needs.
• •For bacalao a la vizcaína, hold back the final salt until the desalinated cod has cooked in the sauce. Salt cod always keeps a little seasoning of its own, however carefully it has been soaked.
• •With salt cod, pour a dry Txakoli if you have it. With tripe or meatballs, a young Rioja Alavesa has enough freshness for the sweet onion without bullying the pepper.

Advance Preparation

• •The choricero peppers can be soaked and scraped up to 2 days ahead. Refrigerate the pulp in a covered container with a thin film of olive oil over the surface.
• •The complete sauce is better after a night's rest and can be made up to 3 days ahead. Cool it promptly, cover, and refrigerate. Reheat over low heat, stirring often and loosening it with a spoonful of water if it has thickened.
• •Freeze the finished sauce in 250ml portions for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, blend briefly if the oil has separated, and check the salt only after reheating.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 100g)