Product Description

The Moro restaurant was born out of a desire to cook within the wonderful tradition of Mediterranean food, and to explore exotic flavours little known in the UK. It is one of the most talked about restaurants and in 1998 won both the Time Out and BBC Good Food awards for Best New Restaurant. Moro: the Cookbook was a huge success. Its passionate insight into the culinary traditions of Spain and the Muslim Mediterranean and its strong vision and ethos captured readers' imaginations. Casa de Moro introduces an impressive quality and diversity of recipes that are by no means inaccessible to the average cook; ranging from Asparagus with parsley and almonds; Moroccan courgette salad; Partridge escabeche; Garlic prawns with white wine and chilli; Chicken with pine nuts, saffron and fino sherry and Chestnut, almond and chocolate cake. Taking the range of flavours beyond those covered in their first book, Sam and Sam Clark have created fresh and dynamic dishes that reflect Moro's ever-changing menu. Much more than a simple catalogue of recipes, Casa de Moro evokes Sam and Sam's extensive travels, their first discovery of Spain and Morocco and their house in the heart of Moorish Andalucia, taking the reader on a journey that resonates with delicious dishes, history and tradition. With an entire chapter dedicated to the ancient ways and cooking of Andalucia and, more specifically, the village in which Sam and Sam live, this personal, evocative account exudes romance and is written and designed with palpable excitement and elegance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3087 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Nigel Slater, The Observer
"...quite the most exquisite, inspirational and downright delicious cookbook I have seen in ages."

From the Publisher
'Moro is to Spanish food what the River Cafe is to Italian' Nigella Lawson

About the Author
Samuel and Samantha Clark not only work together but are also husband and wife, and have both cooked at leading restaurants such as the Eagle gastro-pub and The River Cafe. Sharing a passion for the Moorish regions, they joined forces to open Moro in Clerkenwell in spring 1997. Since then the restaurant has enjoyed unequalled reviews and accolades.

Customer Reviews

The second MORO cookbook from the two Sams.......
...and much, much more than another book of recipes!

'Casa Moro' evokes Samuel and Samantha Clark's extensive travels, their first discovery of Spain and Morocco, and in particular their house in the heart of Moorish Andalucía - welcome to 'Casa Moro'.

'The food of 'Moro' has most of its roots in the home.......
This book has the same cultural culinary mix of Spain and the Muslim Mediterranean as our first - MORO The Cookbook.
However, we have also included a chapter on the wild food and traditional dishes we have come across in our Alpujarran village.
We are always interested in a sense of place with our food, that place often being the street or home.
This book therefore prefers to be at home, as there is no substitute for the love and care of the home cook.'

Eye-catching covers open to 319 matt pages, split over main chapters:-

Bread, flatbreads and Stuffed Breads
Soups
Tapas & Mezze, Starters and Light Meals
Salads and Cooked Moroccan Salads
Fish Main Courses
Meat Main Courses
Vegetables
Grains & Pulses
Home-Made & Home-Cured
Puddings & Cakes

plus the afore-mentioned section on 'Las Alpujarras and Wild Food'.

The appendix includes recipes for 'Basics Stocks', a Vegetable & Fruit Seasonal Guide and an interesting reference page headed:-

'the following information is our personal point of view - an insight into what informs the choices we make when buying food for the home and restaurant',

along with the full index.

Each recipe is preceded by a paragraph of relevant narrative, a full list of ingredients and the number of servings.... then the clear method.
Foreign and English titles, where applicable.

This chunky tome is interspersed with matt 'on-location' photography and the occasional 'step-by-step' method, but....
....perhaps a slight negative may be that it is a little light on photographs of the finished dishes - which may prove less appealing to those of us who like to see what we are aiming for on the plate!

However...having said that.... it is easy to forgive this with the general flow of this well-written, passionate book, which is far more than a cookery book.......evident right from the start in the truly descriptive paragraph entitled 'Winter':-

'To us the most evocative images of winter are the first settling of snow on the Mulhacén and surrounding peaks of the Sierra Nevada, the auburn spheres of kakis (persimmons) on their naked branches and the crimson seeds of wild pomegranates that have burst open. There is not much in the vegetable plots apart from cardoons, giant cabbages for potajes (stews) and broad bean shots just emerging from underneath the trees. Only the laden orange trees in the lower valleys are at their peak. Their orange globes and shiny dark green leaves are so perfect they look almost un-real.
As the nights and days grow colder, the sweet smell of almond wood fires fills the village.
Winter has arrived.'

The opening note to 'Barley Bread', page 264:-

'As we were leaving Tangiers on our camper-van trip, we bought a couple of breads on the street to eat for breakfast.
One was flaky and oily, flavoured with onion and a little tomato; the other was a dense bread made of cracked barley.
This bread felt primitive and ancient - more like polenta than bread.
We like it lightly grilled and eaten with butter and other accompaniments..........'

and the closing note for the same recipe:-

'The brightly coloured enamel teapots that feature in many of the photographs come from Morocco.
We collect them and use them for pouring olive oil.'

Other recipes include:-

Almond Cake
Turkish Pizza with Tomato, Lamb and Allspice
Thick Gazpacho
Chicken Dumplings Broth
Garlic Prawns with White Wine and Chilli
Salt Cod, Orange and Potato Salad
Warm Tomato Bread & Garlic Purée
Winter Tabbouleh
Black Ink Sauce
Scrambled Eggs
Deep Fried Sardine Balls
Roast Pork with Quince Purée
Quail with Grapes & Ginger
Preserved Lemons
Paella with Chicken and Prawns
Chicken Fattee with Rice, Crispbread and Yoghurt
Lamb Tagine with Peas and Tomatoes
Warm Pumpkin and Chickpea Salad with Tahini
Saffron Potatoes
Harissa
Orange Flan
Anise Biscuits
Pomegranate Molasses
Rice Pudding

One of my particular favourites is 'Seafood Salad', (pages 74-5) which whisks me back in time to fond memories of Andalucía....an easy to make dish with wonderful flavours, served with fresh limes and a chunk of rustic bread.
This, finished with 'Kate's Sherry Trifle', from pages 292-3, is a fantastic informal meal to share (eight in my case) and..... remember!

An excellent book packed with yummy recipes
I think this book has to be the best cookery book I have bought so far! The variety and amount of recipes is exceptional. Have cooked three so far this week alone, and was not disappointed. The Carrot Puree with Caraway and Feta is to die for! I never realised carrots could taste so good!

Casa Moro is an enjoyable read, full of easy to follow yummy recipes with nice colour photographs. I look forward to trying many more great dishes.

The only negative I would say, is that the dessert section leaves a lot to be desired. There are not many recipes and most are various ice cream dishes which if like me, you don't have an icecream maker are not much good.

Its a small negative, and overall I am extremely happy with my purchase.

Spot On!
I reviewed the original Moro cookbook less than favourably - I felt it was a case of poor translation of recipes from restaurant to domestic kitchen as it suffered from uneven spicing and some odd proportions. This could not be less true of Casa Moro which is now my constant kitchen companion - perhaps this one succeeds because it's what the two Sams actually eat at home. The recipes are enticing, instructions clear and the flavours gorgeous - oh take me to Marrakesh now!

My favourite recipe from far too many favourites is the subtle and enticing layered dish called Chicken Fattee - OK it's a comedy name to us unsophisticated types, but it's a dizzyingly rich and smoky dish which has the added virtue of amply feeding 8 people from one medium sized chicken. Yum!