Sauteed Halibut with Romesco Sauce- Great for Lent!

I love the Lenten season.  It gives me an excuse to cook fish more often!  I recently saw a recipe in Cooking Light for Sauteed Halibut with Romesco Sauce and thought I would try it.  I followed the directions exactly and put my ancho pepper under the broiler for 2 minutes, but that was about a minute too long and it was burned to a crisp.  I headed over to the internet and started searching to figure out what to do about the ancho pepper and found MANY different variations of Romesco sauce.  The only common ingredients were red bell peppers, vinegar and nuts (hazelnuts or almonds).  After searching for a while, I went back into the kitchen and mixed up what I thought were the best parts of the recipes I looked at and came up with my own version!  It was wonderful!  Try it!

Here is what you use for Romesco Sauce:

1 large red bell pepper

1 slice of whole wheat bread

1/2 c slivered almonds roasted

1 can fire roasted tomatoes (drained)

1 dried ancho pepper

5 cloves garlic

about 1 TBS smoked paprika (I did to taste)

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

about 1 - 2 tsp chipotle chili powder (again, to taste)

1/4 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

1 to 2 TBS red wine vinegar
about 1/2 cup olive oil

Preheat broiler.  Cut the bell pepper in half and remove seeds and stem.  Flatten on a baking sheet.  Put under broiler until skin is charred.  The pepper underneath won't be burned, but will be roasted to perfection.   Remove from oven and put in a zip lock bag to steam (makes it really easy to remove skin).  Once it has cooled a little, remove from bag and the skins will slip right off.  Meanwhile, cut ancho pepper in half and remove seeds and stem.  Then put a little olive oil in a skillet and toast the bread until it is nice and golden.  At the same time, put the ancho in the pan until it sort of starts to plump up a tiny bit and turn red in spots. Remove from pan and cut pepper into strips and tear bread.

When the bell peppers are done roasting, turn the oven to 350 degrees and put 5 garlic cloves (skin still on) on a baking pan and drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil on them, then mix them up so they are covered in olive oil.  I added my roasted tomatoes to the pan, but you could leave that step out if you wanted.  Pour 1/2 cup slivered almonds onto another baking sheet and put them all in the oven.  Roast until the garlic is soft (about 10-15 minutes, it will start to look a little browned).  Watch the almonds closely and remove when they are lightly toasted.  (I have ruined MANY batches of almonds by walking away from them for just a minute while roasting... they go from perfect to ruined very quickly).  Remove from oven and let the garlic cool enough so that you can squeeze the garlic out of the skin.

Next, add roasted bell peppers, ancho pepper, tomatoes, garlic and almonds to a food processor.  Add spices (I wouldn't use regular paprika, the smokiness of the smoked paprika is what made it taste so good).  Blend in food processor then drizzle in red wine vinegar and olive oil.  Taste it and adjust spices, vinegar and olive oil to your taste.

It's best to make the Romesco Sauce at least an hour ahead of time so that the flavors can meld.  I read that you can make it up to a week ahead of time.

For the halibut, I sprinkled a little kosher salt and fresh ground pepper on it, sprayed my skillet with my Misto Olive Oil Sprayer and sauteed until it was done.   (see my post here for info on the sprayer)

Doesn't this look delicious??   YUMMY!

Here is the rice recipe from Cooking Light:
Serve with Nutty Rice: Cook 1 cup basmati rice according to package directions. Stir in 1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions, 2 tablespoons toasted slivered almonds, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Yield: 4 servings. CALORIES 191; FAT 2g (sat 0.2g); SODIUM 152mg


Linking to:
A Thrifty Mom- Look What I made,
Time Warp Wife- {Titus 2}SDAYS
A Southern Fairytale- Mouthwatering Mondays