[.ca] The Moro Cookbook (ISBN 009188084X)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Moro joins the starry ranks of beautifully presented London restaurant cookbooks such as The River Café Cookbook and Momo that have excelled in delivering the tastes of the Mediterranean to our colder climes. Both the cookbook and the restaurant are the realisation of the dreams of Samuel and Samantha Clark, chef-owners and now writers. Their passion for the intense flavours of the cuisine of Spain, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean follow the saffron-cinnamon connection; the robust style of Spanish cooking balancing the lighter, more exotic dishes of the Muslim Mediterranean. Tapas favourites such as tortilla, pimientos del piquillo (sweet peppers), boquerones (anchovies), sardines and chorizo share the table with familiar mezzes like grilled chicken wings with tahini, baba ghanoush and tabbouleh. But the joy of Moro is that it balances such favourites with rarer fare and new inventive recipes with traditional ingredients, such as the colourful and deliciously rich carcuteria cecina with beetroot and almond sauce and grilled quail with rose petals. If you thought you knew what to expect from paella, try monkfish paella with saffron or pork, chorizo and spinach, or Chicken, artichokes and oloroso sherry. All of which might not leave much room for the bitter chocolate, coffee and cardamon coffee cake or the Malaga raisin ice-cream. If some of the ingredients leave you a trifle bewildered, Moro ends with an appendix of suppliers from specialty ethnic shops to local supermarket fare and a terrifically handy almanac of vegetables and fruits in season. Like its other restaurant cook books, Moro also serves up a feast for your eyes and belongs on your coffee table as well as in the kitchen, splendidly extending and deepening our appreciation for these too often over-looked cuisines. --Fiona Buckland

more moro please:
i loved the book but there were too many Spanish recipes for my taste. As I live in Spain not too usefull. however anyone wanting mediterranean food would find it of use.

Mouth-wateringly delicious!:
This book is an absolute joy - obviously Sam & Sam really love their food; using all natural ingredients, (but not to the extremes of Crank's) they re-create the recipes they found during a 3-month trip round Spain, Morocco and Algeria, prior to setting up their 'Moro' restaurant in the UK. They bake their own sourdough bread every day, using their own sourdough yeast, make their own yogurt and somehow find ingredients that most of us have never heard of (but they give a comprehensive list of suppliers at the back). The recipes are simply described, with lots of practical advice and little anecdotes about their discovery of the recipes in tiny restaurants - for example, queuing up outside a hole in the wall that only sold lentil soup! But what a soup! Think Spain - think paella (usually a hotch-potch of rice and everything thrown in to produce a gluey mass) - but this book resets that impression with a series of recipes that are light, tasty, unusual and definitely NOT stodgy! Beautifully illustrated and lovingly written, you really feel the atmosphere of the Spanish/Muslim cookery surrounding you as you get drawn, drooling, into this gorgeous book.

Moro:
One of the best cookbooks I have seen. Every recipe is a gem.

Fabulous but not for first-timers:
This is a fabulous book, with such depth and breadth each time you go back to flip it open something new catches your eye. That said, authenticity is prized over simplicity, and many of the dishes I enjoyed in Spain and wanted to recreate at home are surprisingly time-consuming if not complex to make - potatas bravas and potatas tortilla are 2 examples. However the rice dishes are outstanding and it's a wonderful education in using spices such as saffron and smoked paprika. This isn't a book for mid-week suppers or beginning cooks looking for everything condensed into a 5 easy steps. But the food it helps you produce is outstanding and its a great couch read.