What We Ate Last Night : Chicken Wings a la Moro

Recently I received an email asking me if I would like to have the complete set of the (3) re-released Moro Books. Didn’t take a genius to know how my response was going to be. Man was I a happy sooty indeed.

I have had a copy of the original Moro cookbook for too many years now. I seem to go in cycles with my cooking. Sometimes it’s French, then Italian, then Indian, then Asian and in between my cookbooks get an outing as well. It’s kinda funny, but the Moro cookbook was due a dusting off pretty soon. But I’m never one to turn down a good offer.

I normally buy 2 or 3 chickens at a time and joint them, bag and freeze them. My freezer is packed with little bags of different joints of chicken.

I am a fastidious saver of everything and hate to waste. I have bags of chicken carcasses waiting to be used to make stock, although this summer as most of the time the weather has been to good to stay in doors for 4 hours letting a huge pot of water bubble away. After last summer I want to be out doors.

I am also a serial collector of chicken wings. After a month or two I have a good size amount to make some very nice suppers or more interesting work lunches. So with my new Moro cookbooks and a large amount of wings begging to be let out of the freezer, it only took me 39 pages to find what I was looking for.

So for this recipe you will need the following. It does say it feeds four. Yeah right, four little sparrows on a diet. So it did us two or just one of you are Nobu.

12 Chicken wings

3 Garlic cloves, crushed with a little bit of salt

1 Tsp paprika

1 Tsp cumin powder

Juice of 1 lemon

2 Tbsp Tahini paste

1 Tbsp olive oil

1. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl
2. Add the chicken wings and mix thoroughly until they are all coated
3. Cover with cling film and pop in the fridge overnight
4. Heat an oven to 220°C or Gas mark 7 or on a bar-b-q if you have one. You lucky buggers
5. Take the wings out of the fridge and allow to get to room temperature
6. Put onto a tray and pop in the oven for about 15 – 20 minutes, turning half way through
7. Once cooked season with salt and pepper and serve with a thick wedge of lemon

An unusual way to eat wings, but the nutty paste and lemon make this a winner for summer. I love Moro, I just wish I could eat at the restaurant more often. 

Birthday Treats @ Moro

It has been so long since we were last at Moro’s, it really is quite sad indeed. When we first went there, it still had a big reputation of being full of tosser media types, and it was pretty full of those types back then.

Nowadays it doesn’t seem to attract those twats as it used to, although there were a few in when we arrived.

Everything else about Moro was just how we remembered it, from the warm welcome to the buzzy vibe, to the great food and that great kitchen. How I always wanted to work in there.

I really cannot understand why it has taken us over 5 years to return to Moro. I know it will not be as long before we return, but I’m pretty sure we said that last time.

I brought the first Moro cookbook when it came out, and have been regularly cooked from it for many a year now. Although I kinda prefer some of the recipes from Claudia Rodens Middle Eastern book. They have been cooked over many generations and have a long tradition. Moro’s recipes are modern and chic, just like the restaurant.

I wasn’t that hungry when we came to ordering, as we’d been house hunting in Herne Hill, and had a pretty good late breakfast in a small café near to the station, plus I wanted to save some room for the pud, so I passed on the starter.

Lina however was pretty keen to get stuck in. She was very glad that the dish she had the last time, which still haunts her even today. Scrambled egg and prawns was not on the menu.

This time she opted for a dish of mojama and wilted spinach. Mojama is dry cured loin of tuna, which is normally sliced very thinly and served with almonds and olive oil as a tapas snack in Madrid bars. Well that’s how I’ve had it before. Moro served it with some warm wilted spinach drenched in lush olive oil.

The mojama was not as dry as I remembered it, it had a slight tuna taste to it, but was as silky as the texture. A lovely starter, shame I wasn’t allowed but a few mouthfuls. But at £8.50, I wouldn’t have given her much either.

Our mains were wood roasted chicken with stuffed cabbage leaves and seasoned yoghurt, and the wood roasted seabass with cabbage puree and piquillo peppers cooked in white wine. Now that’s a mouthful.

My chicken was perfectly cooked, still very moist and not dried out, but it did lack any hint of being wood roasted. The cabbage leaves were stuffed with a lentil and rice pilaf, they were well cooked and well seasoned. The yoghurt dressing was nice and light and not too thin. A very easy dish to conjure up back home, but what sets Moro apart is the quality of the cooking.

From what I remembered of the Seabass (I was too involved in my chicken) was that it was again well cooked and well seasoned. The piquillo peppers were cut into slithers and were a treat indeed. I do love these small sweet spicy red angels. But I was blown away by the cabbage puree. Such a great cabbage taste, but yet so smooth and velvety. Wow. That would work well with a Sunday roast.

We shared the yoghurt cake with pistachios and pomegranate. This is how I remember yoghurt cake form the Middle East, with the added goodness of pistachios and pomegranate seeds on top, it was a great way to end a great meal.

The strangest thing is that the bill including service came to £88.88p. A most certain lucky bill. One I was happy to pay. It was a shame that our lottery numbers were not that lucky that night, or the fact that I got a bit of a roasting come Monday morning at work. It looks my good fortune was confined to a few hours on a Saturday night in a great restaurant on Exmouth Market.