Spanish Style Pork Romesco for Slow Carb Diet

Pork Roast with Romesco Sauce for Slow Carb

Romesco is one of the sauces I use a lot to enhance Slow Carb Diet (4-Hr Body) dinners.  It is a tomato and red pepper based sauce from Catalonia, Spain.  In Spain it is traditionally used with fish, poultry or potatoes, but I use it with all kinds of protein dishes and many vegetable dishes.  It imparts a sweet, smoky flavor that takes the boredom out of undressed dishes while still being compliant with the Slow Carb Diet.  This sauce will elevate your main dishes to something special, on any kind of diet or non-diet.

Alternative Romesco Sauce:

The ingredient list is undeniably long – sorry.  This is a dish to make for Sunday supper or when you have time to cook.  Alternatively, you can go here for a recipe to make Romesco sauce ahead of time to use on this and other dishes.

Pork Roast with Spanish-Style Romesco Sauce

Ingredients:

• 

  Spanish Romesco Sauce Atop Pork Roast

  2 Tbsp olive oil

• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbsp coarse kosher salt
• 1 Tbsp fresh oregano or marjoram
• 1 Tbsp smoked paprika
• 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• pork roast, about 6 pounds
• 1/2 cup roasted salted almonds (about 1 1/2 ounces)
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs (omit if on SCD)
• 16-oz jar roasted red peppers, drained
• 5-6 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
• pinch cayenne (optional)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 cup dry Sherry

Directions:

1. Make the rub by mixing the first 6 ingredients in a small bowl until you have a paste.  Spread the paste (the rub) all over the pork and then place the pork in a roasting pan and let it stand at room temp. for 1 hour. (Alternatively, you can cover roast and chill for 1 day, making sure you let it stand at room temp 1 hour before cooking).
2. Preheat oven to 425° F.  Roast pork 15 minutes.  Reduce oven temp to 325° F and continue roasting pork until instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part registers 140-145° F (about 1 hour 15 minutes longer).
3. While pork is roasting make the romesco mix:  Chop almonds in food processor (process together with breadcrumbs if using).  Add roasted peppers, garlic and tomatoes, cayenne and oil and blend mixture until smooth.
4. When roast is done (140-145°), transfer it to a platter and tent with foil.  Let it rest 20-30 min.  Spoon off any fat from drippings in roasting pan and add the sherry to the pan.  Boil until pan juices are reduced to 1/4 cup (may have to place roasting pan over two burners), stirring up browned bits (about 5-7 minutes).
5. Scrape pan juices into the mixture in the food processor and blend until smooth.  Taste and adjust salt and pepper if needed.
6. Slice roast and serve with Romesco sauce.

Because of the pan drippings, Romesco made with this recipe will be richer than the recipe for the refrigerated Romesco sauce from this recipe.

And, if you really want to be fancy use an 8-10-bone heritage pork rib roast and have the chine bone removed.