simple romesco sauce

This delicious sauce, copied from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, goes with all sorts of things - roasted vegetables, for example - or can just be shlooped up using strips of grilled pitta.

1 dried ancho chilli
3 large red bell peppers, approx 590g
50ml olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
A good pinch of cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt

Remove stem and seeds of the ancho chilli. Put chilli in small pan with 175ml water. Bring to boil, cover pan and turn heat to low. Simmer for 5 mins, then turn off heat and allow the chilli to sit covered for another 5 minutes, or until it is very soft. Cool slightly in the liquid. Remove the chilli and peel away the skin. Save the liquid and the flesh.

Preheat grill. Remove stems and seeds of red peppers and cut into quarters lengthways. Lay peppers, skins die up, in a baking tray, and place under gril, about 10-13cms away, and grill for 7-10 mins, moving the pepper as needed until skins are evenly charred. You will need to turn the tray now and then to assist even charring. Put the red peppers in a paper bag (I use a bowl with cling film over the top) and set aside for 10 mins. Peel the skins.

Put the flesh of the ancho chilli, 2 tablespoons of the ancho liquid, the roasted and peeled red peppers, oil, vinegar and cayenne, garlic and salt into a blender and blend to a paste. Serve at room temperature.