Husband-and-wife team Sam(uel) and Sam(antha) Clark (the surname also being by some fluke Samantha’s maiden name) have got us used to the heady aromas and blistering flavours of the spicy arc stretching from Spain through to North Africa and all the way to Turkey. You could be forgiven, therefore, in thinking that this book is re-treading familiar territory. And to an extent you would be right: this is a renewal of old passions for Mediterranean food and ingredients found in the Clarks’ kitchen – the ‘laboratory’ of their famous Camden restaurant.
Yet this time ‘east’ had a slightly different geographical inclination, and was only a bike-ride away. Behind a barbed dusty gate east of London’s Victoria Park lay Manor Garden allotments, a world more eastern Mediterranean than Hackney Wick, where women rolled out flatbreads or gathered vine leaves for dolmas and men grilled kebabs for the weekend family meal. It was here, in the company of Cypriots, Kurds and Turks that the Clarks grew their own produce and lived out the seasons, making friends and borrowing recipes for frying green tomatoes, cooking artichoke leaves and braising wild poppy leaves.
But then the rabbits came, chased by the bulldozers making space for the 2012 Olympics. The diggers finally caught up and the century-old allotment now belongs to the past tense, replaced by a hockey stadium. This book documents its last ever growing season, “a journal of life within a unique community” that has now moved on to “scratch around in a new patch of earth”.
Nostalgia for a paradise lost aside, you will find much to inspire you here. Need to do a spot of weeding? Then pick the dandelion, poppy or mallow leaves in your garden, add some tender chard or spinach, spring onions and feta cheese and flip over some g?zleme (Turkish stuffed griddle breads). Feel like foraging on a country walk? Look for young nettle tops, wild garlic or chickweed for a ‘Wanderer’s Soup’ – a velvety chicken and potato broth.
Grill sweetcorn on charcoal embers and transform it with cumin and caramelised butter. Try out Fatima’s sardine and potato tagine, or then some pan-fried pork with almonds and fennel. Put an end to a light meal with Noah’s pudding – with all the grains, pulses and dried fruit left in the Ark’s store once the Flood had subsided and the animals wandered away. Breakfast on a nourishing bowl of yoghurt with tahini and honey and tempt the kids with some vitamin-rich orange jelly. But before this cold spell is out just make sure you brew a potful of roast pumpkin soup with cinnamon and warm the cockles of your loved ones’ hearts.
Moro East is published by Ebury Press and is available from Moufflon Bookshops (…)
Tahini dip with pumpkin
1kg pumpkin, peeled and seeded (about 600g prepared flesh), cut into 3cm chunks
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
? heaped teaspoon freshly ground cinnamon
½ small garlic clove, crushed with a pinch of salt
2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted
l Preheat oven to 220°C.
l Place pumpkin in a roasting tray and drizzle over 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sprinkle with the cinnamon and a good pinch of salt and black pepper and toss well. Cover tightly with aluminium foil and roast for 40 minutes, until very soft.
l Uncover and return to the oven for 10 minutes, to dry out any excess moisture.
l Transfer the pumpkin to a food processor and add the garlic, tahini, lemon juice and the remaining olive oil. Puree until smooth and then check for seasoning.
l Spread the puree out on a plate and sprinkle with the pine nuts.
