Pimento Pepper Rouille
on Aug 15, 2018, Updated Aug 13, 2023
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A little bit of magic in sauce form.
Please bear with me while I hopefully—quickly—make clear that this is just a simple blender or food processor sauce that will make so many things so much more delicious.
If you are thinking, what is this fancy-pants sounding recipe?, I can hardly blame you. Rouille is a classic French condiment usually served with all kinds of fish and shellfish soups and stews, like this Provencal Fish Stew. The classic recipe that this sauce serenades is most often Bouillabaisse, another hoity toity sounding French word, but in the end it’s just French for fish stew.
So rouille (like almost everything) comes in loads of varieties, from thick mayonnaise like versions to thinner sauces. It can be yellow or orange or red. It can contain peppers (of all kinds), spicy ingredients, bread, garlic, vinegar or lemon juice, saffron, maybe mustard. The traditional way to make it involves a mortar and pestle. My way involves a machine.
One thing I love about my food processor, and also many blenders, is that the top has an insert that allows you to pour the oil into it, and the a tiny hole allows the oil to very slowly get added to the mixture in the bowl, so that it emulsifies. Anyone who has ever tried to follow a recipe that says “drizzle in the olive oil very slowly while whisking” knows that this is a great invention.
Anyway, here I blended up a can of pimento peppers (roasted sweet peppers), with some soaked and squeezed bread, lemon juice, garlic, and a couple of spices. And it turned out the most gorgeous deep coral orange color, and tasted like happiness.
Pimento Pepper Rouille: A little bit of magic in sauce form.
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When I was a kid I spent part of a couple of summers in France (oh how I wish my life still included little chunks of time in France) and tasting this actually did snap me back to that time and place. It’s just amazing when a food can do that.
Other Sauces and Condiments to Try:
- Roasted Red Pepper Basil Mayonnaise
- How to Make Vegan Fish Sauce
- Pimento Cheese Spread
- Creamy Avocado Dip
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Pimento Pepper Rouille
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 slices good white bread crusts removed
- 1 can (13.75 ounce) pimento peppers
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- large pinch cayenne pepper or to taste
- Kosher salt to taste
Instructions
- Rip the bread into large pieces and put them into a bowl. Add water to cover, then pull out the bread quickly and squeeze out the excess water, leaving squishy soaked bread.
- Place the bread in a food processor or blender, and add the pimentos, lemon juice, garlic, paprika, cayenne and salt. Process until well blended. Add the olive oil in a very thin steady stream, using the insert made for this purpose or just doing it by hand. As the oil gets incorporated the mixture should emulsify (thicken).
- Scrape the mixture into a bowl.
