Recipe: Nico’s Sauce – Sun Dried Tomato & Anchovy Dipping Sauce
Last week, I shared some fun highlights from my recent coastal California road trip that I took with none other than my momma. Today, you get the pleasure of learning how to make the very best dish I had on the trip: Nico’s sauce.
Actually, I take that back. I can’t make Nico’s sauce the way he does. And, honestly, neither can you. No one can. But damnit, we will try!
Ingredients: dry sun-dried tomatoes, fresh garlic, fresh rosemary, extra-virgin olive oil, any dry white wine (plus a swig for the chef), pepper, crushed red pepper, coarse sea salt, and anchovy filets
Let’s rewind a little. On our evening in Carmel, mom and I opted for a healthy splurge and had dinner at a little Mediterranean restaurant called Nico. We were greeted by the bubbliest, Italianest host you could imagine, and were seated right away. Our (incredibly handsome) server introduced himself and placed a small ramekin of red sauce and some fresh bread in front of us. I think back at that moment, before I’d taken a bite of that fateful sauce, and recall how innocently I looked at the bowl. “Oh,” I must have thought, “look, a simple tomato dip for our bread before the meal comes. How quaint.” That opinion changed when I took my first bite.