I usually don’t remember the first time I tried a dish, but for some reason I have recorded in my mind my debut with xató in a restaurant in Sitges, a couple of millennia ago. Accustomed to seeing endive as punishment, I must have been impressed that someone had managed to transform it into such a delicacy, bathing it in the best sauce possible to tame its tartness.
In addition to Sitges, two other municipalities in the province of Barcelona (Vilanova i la Geltrú and Vilafranca del Penedès) and one in Tarragona (El Vendrell) dispute the paternity of this salad, which its inhabitants put into practice in different ways with subtle variations. What is almost always repeated is the thick red sauce of walnuts and ñora, sister of romesco; desalted cod, anchovies, tuna and olives.
Although some xatós put emphasis on fish, my recipe, which I published in the book The cuisine of here for today’s people, It relegates it to a secondary role in favor of vegetables and sauce. Some appreciate the outer green leaves of endive, but if you are hypersensitive to forage it is best to stick to the yellow ones in the center. There are those who change part of the bread with Maria biscuit to enhance the sweetness of the sauce, but I leave it here only as a possibility, so that the wise men of the kitchen don’t give me what I deserve. Catalan cuisine.
Time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: It’s a salad, for God’s sake.
Ingredients
For 4 people
- 1 endive
- About 75 g of desalted cod
- About 75 g of tuna in oil
- 4 anchovies
- 8 pitted black olives
- 8 arbequina olives (or other pitted green olives)
Immersion
- 100 g of toasted almonds
- 100 g of toasted hazelnuts
- 1 anchovy
- 2 or 3 slices of bread (about 100 g)
- 1 clove of garlic
- 4 ñora (or 4 teaspoons of ñora pulp)
- Vinegar
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
Instructions
If using dried ñora, blanch them in boiling water until soft.
Toast the bread and soak it in vinegar.
For the sauce, chop the almonds, hazelnuts, seedless ñoras or their pulp, anchovy, garlic and salt in a mortar or blender.
Add the drained bread and blend. Gradually add the olive oil (about 100 ml) until a sauce forms. Season with salt and vinegar.
Remove the toughest, greenest leaves of the escarole and chop the rest. Mix with the crumbled cod and tuna and season with the amount of sauce you want.
Finish with the anchovies and olives.
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