Cookbook Club at Home: Moro

COOKBOOK CLUB at home

MORO: THE COOKBOOK BY SAM & SAM CLARK

COOKBOOK CLUB at home

URVESH PARVAIS

This subject of this month’s Cookbook Club at Home has been chosen by Urvesh Parvais of Gujarati Rasoi, a true Borough Market stalwart. Urvesh and his mother Lalita first started sharing their family’s take on classic Gujarati home cooking from an east London street food stall in 2005 before bringing their flavour-packed vegetarian and vegan dishes to Borough. One of the cookbooks that most inspired Urvesh as he was learning his craft was Moro: The Cookbook, published in 2001. He explains why:

You don’t need to be a detective to figure out my favourite recipes from the first Moro cookbook, which I was given 20 years ago.

The pages have all the hallmarks of recipes repeated and loved. Each stain, mark or fold tells of a journey through a culinary world that references so many of the wonderful spices that I grew up with.

However familiar some of the ingredients, these recipes felt different. I was fascinated by how spices are used in recipes like the broad bean pilav or the garbanzos con espinacas, with a lighter touch than I was used to.

The patatas bravas are always a favourite with everyone – simple but oh so tasty – as is the potato, cucumber and fava bean soup.

The recipes are a lovely melting point where aromatic, sensual eastern spices meet with delicious western herbs such as oregano and fresh ingredients like feta, pulses and olives. Combining these with eastern Mediterranean spices such as sumac creates a really fascinating experience. The flavour is influenced by the crossing of so many cultures over so many centuries.

The recipes are also very adaptable for vegetarians. If you leave out the fish or meat or change them for chickpeas, or throw in a little chilli where chorizo is usually used, the outcome is always great.

I tend to use the recipes as a launch pad to creating something new – influenced by the original but using whatever fresh vegetables look great at the market that day. There is so much scope for invention and play in this book.

COOKBOOK CLUB AT HOME A beginner’s guide

ANGELA CLUTTON

THE BOOK. The Borough Market Cookbook Club nominates a book to be the focus of each month’s event. The schedule of books is chosen a few months in advance to give you plenty of time to select an event and plan your gathering.

They will always be books that are easily available to buy via high street or online booksellers, borrow from libraries, or view through the ckbk online cookbook resource (which members have limited free trial access to).

PLANNING. Your event could take place any time in the calendar month that the cookbook has been chosen for. Any day, any time of day. You will need to think carefully about where to host (for example, at home or in a local venue). Decide on how many people to invite, and who. Let them know what the cookbook is. Give them the event date and time. And send them the link to this guide.

Make sure you ask about any allergies or dietary requirements so that no one goes hungry or risks eating something they shouldn’t.

Decide if you want people to cook different things from the book or if a crossover of dishes is fine. Decide whether you want them to let you know in advance what they’re bringing, or just turn up with it and surprise you. We strongly encourage people to choose a dish that is safe to serve at room temperature, and to bring their dish ready to serve.

Will people bring their own drinks? What about plates, cutlery, glasses – and the washing up!?!

SHOPPING. One of the joys Cookbook Club events is hearing about members’ favourite places to shop and their exploits in tracking down ingredients. If you can, make the shopping as much as part of the Cookbook Club experience as the cooking or the event itself. That could mean coming to Borough, visiting your local food market, or seeking out small independent shops.

COOKING. Take care to prepare your food in a hygienic environment. The dish you make is for the consumption of others, so be sure to maintain the highest standards of cleanliness throughout its preparation.

THE EVENT. Cookbook Club events work best when people feel relaxed enough to be honest about how their dish went and what they think of the book. Try really hard not to judge each other (or each other’s food) and listen to what people think. Give everyone space to talk and share their views. Not everyone will agree – and that’s okay!

THE DISCUSSION. Here are some possible topics for discussion, to get you started: How familiar were you with the writer? Did you know about them or own any of their books before coming along to this event? Were there plenty of dishes in the book you wanted to cook? What else (if anything) have you made from it? How does it compare to other cookbooks you might know and love? What dishes have you tried at the event that you might now want to try out at home? Will you buy or keep the book? Has your opinion of the book changed over the course of the event, from eating the food and hearing other people’s experiences?

SHARING. Please take lots of pictures and videos while you’re shopping, cooking and attending the Cookbook Club at Home events. Then share them via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and make sure you tag us @boroughmarket .

IF YOU CAN, MAKE THE SHOPPING AS MUCH AS PART OF THE COOKBOOK CLUB EXPERIENCE AS THE COOKING OR THE EVENT ITSELF. THAT COULD MEAN COMING TO BOROUGH, VISITING YOUR LOCAL FOOD MARKET, OR SEEKING OUT INDEPENDENT SHOPS

Moro: The Cookbook by Sam & Sam Clark (Ebury Press, £30)

Photography by Pia Tryde

MORO: THE COOKBOOK

BY SAM & SAM CLARK

An introduction

Back in 2001, when Moro: The Cookbook was published, there was much about the Moro restaurant, which had opened four years earlier in London’s Exmouth Market, that now seems entirely standard but back then was completely extraordinary. There was the Clerkenwell location. There was the belief that highly accomplished cooking could be consumed in a buzzing, informal setting rather than a quiet, starchy dining room. There was the absolute commitment to a widely unfamiliar culinary culture. And there was the embrace of fermentation and fire: sourdough loaves, live yoghurt, wood ovens, charcoal grills.

Sam and Sam Clark, a married couple so attuned they share not just their tastes but their forename, met while working together at The Eagle pub, EC1’s other era-defining eatery. Both were fascinated by the food of southern Spain and Muslim north Africa, two spheres divided by the Mediterranean but linked by centuries of shared history. In 1996, the Clarks spent their three-month honeymoon in a campervan, driving through Spain and Morocco to the Sahara, seeking inspiration for the Moorish-Spanish restaurant they would open on their return. “The idea was to learn about as many flavours and techniques as possible and to try to discover details that really make food taste of where it comes from and not seem cooked by an Anglo-Saxon,” they wrote.

Moro opened in 1997 and had a seismic impact on London’s dining scene. Despite its almost

instant success, the restaurant managed to maintain its casual, local feel. It became a place of pilgrimage for food lovers, constantly booked up, but you could still pop in off the street to sit at the bar with glass of sherry and a plate of exquisite ham.

This 2001 cookbook was the first of many that would emerge from the restaurant – the latest, Moro Easy, came out last year. It begins with an eight-page recipe for sourdough (“At the risk of sounding like a 1970s health book, we would love to entice you into baking your own bread and making yoghurt”) and proceeds through a vast number of dishes (around 200 in total), characterised by the abundance of fresh vegetables and subtle use of spicing.

Some of the ingredients took some tracking down back then (the book contained a helpful directory of specialist retailers at the back, Brindisa prominent among them) but the recipes themselves are remarkably uncomplicated. “It is important that you find it simple to put together Moro plates, which should be balanced, complementary and culturally true,” state the authors.

In its design, the book was very much of its time. Most of the recipes don’t have photos, and the food imagery seems raw and unstyled by today’s glossy standards. There are no portraits or reportage shots. Moro: The Cookbook is all about the food, not the lifestyle. But what amazing food it is.

Serves 6-8

At Moro, we always make a tortilla for the bar. For us it encapsulates much about Spanish food, and if done well is a miraculous thing. The secret of a good tortilla lies in the sweetness of the onions and the luxurious softness of the potatoes.

Ingredients

2 large Spanish onions

700g firm waxy potatoes (Cyprus, for example)

10 tbsp olive oil

750ml sunflower oil for deep-frying

6 eggs

Sea salt and black pepper

Method

Cut the onions in half, peel and thinly slice. Peel the potatoes, cut in half lengthways, and then across in slices 5mm thick. Toss with ½ tsp salt and leave to stand in a colander.

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy saucepan and when hot but not smoking add the onions with a pinch of salt. Give them a good stir, reduce the heat to low, and cook very slowly for about 30-45 mins until golden in colour and sweet in smell. Be sure to stir every 5 mins so they cook evenly and do not stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove from the heat, drain, and reserve the oil.

Meanwhile, cook the potatoes. A deep-fat fryer is perfect but for those without one, pour the sunflower oil into a similar-sized saucepan (never fill the pan more than half full) and set over a medium heat. The temperature is crucial as the potatoes should cook until tender without colouring; that is, simmer gently and not spit furiously. Drain in a colander. Strain the oil and keep it back for another occasion.

Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk briefly. Add the onions and potatoes

and mix together. Taste for seasoning. The mixture may only need a little pepper.

Pour the reserved onion oil into a frying pan approximately 20cm across, and set over a high heat. When the oil begins to smoke pour the mix ture in with one hand while shaking the pan with the other. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 3-5 mins or until the underside is golden brown. Then take a plate of a similar size and rest it over the pan. With both hands and two kitchen cloths, carefully invert the totilla onto the plate. The uncooked side will be fairly runny, so watch out! Turning the tortilla helps to give it its distinctive shape.

Turn the heat to high again, pour a little extra olive oil into the frying pan and slide the tortilla back into the pan, runny-side down, and tuck in the edges. Cook for another 3 mins. Both sides should now be golden brown in colour. If not, it requires a little more cooking. The tortilla will be cooked if the middle feels solid. If it still feels a little soft, continue to cook until firmer. Remove from the pan and slide onto a plate. Allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting into diamond shapes.

Recipe from Moro: The Cookbook by Sam & Sam Clark (Ebury Press, £30).

Shop

Spanish onions

Turnips

Waxy potatoes

Ted’s Veg Eggs

Wild Beef

ROMESCO DE PEIX

Serves 4

This is a Catalan fish stew, named after the famous romesco (nut) sauce from the same region. Any combination of fish may be used for this stew: we like monkfish and clams, but mussels, prawns and other firm fish may be substituted or included.

Ingredients

6 tbsp olive oil

1 large Spanish onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

3 bay leaves, preferably fresh

2 red peppers, quartered, seeded and thinly sliced

½ tsp sweet smoked Spanish paprika

1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes, drained of juice and roughly chopped 150ml white wine

100ml hot fish stock

50 saffron strands in 4 tbsp boiling water

150g whole blanched almonds, lightly toasted and roughly ground

650g monkfish fillets, in 5cm-square chunks

500g venus or palourde clams, rinsed

Method

In a large saucepan or terracotta ‘cazuela’ (dish), heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt, and cook the onion, stirring occasionally, until golden and sweet, about 15-20 mins.

Now add the garlic, rosemary, bay and red pepper. When the pepper has softened for at least 10 mins, add the paprika and tomatoes. Simmer for another 10 mins, then add the white wine and allow the alcohol to bubble away for a couple of minutes before adding the fish stock and the saffron-infused water.

Finally thicken the base with the almonds and taste for seasoning.

When you are almost ready to eat, add the monkfish and clams, put the lid on and simmer until the fish is cooked through and the clams have steamed open (about 5 mins). Serve with new potatoes and/or a raw fennel salad.

Recipe from Moro: The Cookbook by Sam & Sam Clark (Ebury Press, £30).

Shop

Monkfish

Furness Fish Markets

Spanish paprika

Brindisa

Saffron

Oliveology

CHURROS CON CHOCOLATE

Serves 6

Every town in Spain has at least one ‘churrería’, where you can buy lines or coils of fried doughnuts to dip in thick, rich hot chocolate or ‘café con leche’ (milky coffee) for breakfast. Churros are one of those Spanish institutions, popular with all ages and a great opportunity for chatting with friends and family or people-watching. At Moro we serve churros as a pudding, with a glass of chilled chocolate.

Ingredients

For the chocolate

1 small cinnamon stick

400ml milk

300g dark chocolate, broken up

250ml sweetened condensed milk

250ml double cream

For the churros

120g butter

A pinch of salt

130g white bread flour

½ tsp baking powder

2 eggs

Caster sugar for dusting (optional)

Method

To make the chocolate, infuse the cinnamon in the milk by simmering it for 15 mins. Remove from the heat and discard the cinnamon.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a bainmarie. When melted, gently stir in the infused milk and condensed milk until smooth and emulsified. Pour into six tumblers. Whisk the cream until soft peaks form and spoon on top of the chocolate. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

To make the churros, bring 250ml water, butter and salt to the boil in a medium saucepan. Beat in the flour and baking powder. Cook for 1½ mins over a low-medium heat, stirring all the while. Take the pan off the heat. Vigorously stir in the eggs, one at a time. Allow the dough to cool.

To cook the churros, put the mixture into a piping bag with a star-shaped nozzle. Pour sunflower oil into a large frying pan to a depth of about 3cm and heat over a medium heat. To check whether the oil is hot enough put a small amount of mixture in it – if it sizzles you are ready to start cooking the churros. Pipe the mixture into the oil to make long sausages or whatever shape you fancy. Fry the churros until light brown and really crispy. Remove and drain on kitchen paper. Dust liberally with sugar and serve immediately with the chocolate.

Recipe from Moro: The Cookbook by Sam & Sam Clark (Ebury Press, £30).

Cinnamon stick

Spice Mountain Cream

Hook & Son

Dark chocolate

So Chocolicious