Salsa Brava

America has sports bars. And sports bars have hot wings. Spain has tapas bars. And tapas bars have patatas bravas. Essentially home fries with a sweet paprika based dipping sauce, these are the go-to snack pretty much across Spain. They are also one of my favorite things about living in Spain. Simple, fried, salty, and dipped in a tomato-based sauce. They are a perfect accompaniment to a beer and a chat. Like hot wings at American sports bars, the quality, and the recipes, can vary wildly. Regardless, no matter the sauce, it is always called salsa brava.

There are a ton of terrible recipes for salsa brava on the internet. Many of those are in English and published by supposed experts in cooking. And they are almost invariably wrong. Just wrong.

How can I make such a claim? Well, because there is a single recipe for salsa brava. It was first documented by the columnist Luis Carandell in his 1967 book Vivir en Madrid. Indeed, the only dispute at all about salsa brava is which of two Madrid bars it might have come from first. The fact that they both used identical recipes is the origin of the issue.

Casa Perico and La Casona are the bars where, according to who you ask, patatas bravas and it’s sauce originate. As we have already said, it doesn’t matter which one it was, because the recipe is the same. They both contain two types of pimentón, ground cayenne pepper, tomato, onion, and garlic. There is no tomato paste (unknown in Spain at the time) and certainly no umami-fortification tricks like chicken broth or adulterants like flour. It is the definitive salsa brava, simple and straightforward. And it is the one I present here.

Ingredients

• 700 g tomatoes. Preferably a plum variety.
• 1 tsp white sugar.
• 1 medium white onion.
• 3 cloves garlic.
• 1 cayenne pepper.
• 1 tsp pimentón de la Vera picante. Or another hot paprika.
• Freshly ground black pepper.
• a splash of Jerez sherry vinegar.
• a pinch of salt.

Instructions

1. Dice your garlic and onion.
2. Sweat them over low heat with a splash of olive oil.
3. Add the cayenne pepper, whole. Also add the paprika.
4. Crush the tomatoes and add them to the pan.
5. Toss in the sugar, the salt, and a splash of good Jerez vinegar.
6. Cook it down until the tomato falls apart.
7. When it is ready, put the whole pan into a blender and blend to a perfect smooth consistency.
   1. Alternatively, transfer it to a container and use an immersion blender.
8. Season further to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm or room temperature.