MORITO: A LITTLE MORO

Walk into Morito and you might think you're in a nuevo tapas bar in Madrid or Barcelona: a clean, modern space filled with people sitting at the bar and at tables squeezed along the perimeters of the small room; a handwritten list of tapas, on a board; the chef, beavering away at the plancha turning out small plates, a buzzing atmosphere. But, you’re not in either of Spain’s two largest cities, you’re in Morito, a little tapas bar offshoot of parent and neighbour Moro, which stands on the site previously occupied by Spanish food wholesaler Brindisa.

Look closer though and there are plenty of clues that you are in fact in London's trendy Clerkenwell and not Madrid’s trendy Chueca. First off there's the smell or rather the lack of it: that unique mix of fag smoke, deep frying, cured hams and coffee I know and love from Spain’s finest. Then there’s the staff. They're not dressed in ill-fitting dark suits accessorised with wonky bowties and they are not nearly grumpy enough.

I like Moro. I’ve been going there since it first opened and although I don’t think it’s as good as it was (but then, where is?) from time to time I’ll still prop myself up at the large zinc and knock back a chilled half bottle of Manzanilla and a few cazuelas from their short tapas list.

The selection is larger at Morito and is written in an odd sort of Spanglish (and very irritating it is too). And the prices, well, they don’t seem too bad on first viewing but when you see the size of the dishes - and they really are tapa-sized - you might feel, like me, that they’re overpriced. The lack of seafood dishes too is a bit of a giveaway too. But overlook its cod-Hispanic affectations and like its big sister Morito is not a bad place to hang out for a bite and a glass or two.

The cooking is basically Spanish with a bit of Mahgreb thrown in - sumac and za'atar are available to sprinkle over one’s food. There’s plently of pimentón used as well. Sometimes too much, as in a dish of chiccarones (sic). They're advertised as being from Cadiz style although the last time I had them there they were a type of pressed pork rather than the usual cubes of belly pork served here. More importantly, all I could taste in the dish was the paprika.

Tortillitas de Camarones also hail from that ancient City. They’re a thin, crisp pancake made from chickpea batter with some shrimps mixed in, almost as another seasoning. Morito’s version was a bit oily but tasted authentic enough. There weren’t many shrimp but that could have been because the portion was so titchy.

An empanadilla of mussels and chorizo tasted took me back to visit to A Coruña although I found the pastry used here a bit leaden and reminiscent of something you'd find in the local health shop.

Croquetas de Jamón were disappointing. Instead of a creamy béchamel interior there was a tasteless semi-solid grey mush with very taste. The Croquetas de Bacalao, sorry Salt Cod, were much better. I also liked Morito’s preparation of Octopus which came sectioned and grilled in a perky and fresh-tasting salpicon .

The balance in a dish of Butifarra with white Navarran beans was all wrong and with a big splodge of garlic aioli the dish ended up being a bit too greasy and the taste of the Catalan sausage was lost. The beans were beautifully creamy though and cried out for a little bit of bread to mop things up.

Of the Montaditos (stuff on bread) the best was the little riff on brekkie: a couple of quail eggs with Jamón sitting on good Moro bread. Definitely something to be picked up and stuffed into one’s gob (which did what I did). The worst was the Birch Bolete where the taste of the mushroom was killed by the fried bread underneath.

Given that much of the preceding food hadn’t been bland, although oiliness was a general theme of the evening, a plate of seared rump was a bit of a shrug of the shoulders sort of dish. It hadn’t been seared enough, it hadn’t been seasoned enough and it hadn’t been rested enough. And (deep sigh) the beef hadn’t been hung for long enough.

There’s just the two desserts to choose from but for me it’s always going to be a scoop of Moro's Rum 'n' Raisin Ice Cream slathered in PX. It still hits the spot although the lack of any liqueur action meant I had to take a my espresso and Patxaran con hielo next door.

Although the evening may have seemed like more like a sequence of misses than hits the quality of the ingredients were decent and nothing left a bad taste in my mouth… well, maybe the prices did a little bit but to be honest that’s also the case at Moro and I still go back there quite happily. I can’t really explain it. I’ll probably return to Morito as well.

PORK VINDALOO: THAT RECIPE ONE MORE TIME

This is not the first time I have posted a recipe for Vindaloo on DH.

However, as we have a lot of new readers recently and this is one of the recipes I am most requested to send when I receive e-mails, I thought it was worth posting once more. I am also developing the dish each time I prepare it, so it may have altered from the last time I shared it, two years ago.

Although Vindaloo is associated with the Indian state of Goa. It has its origins in Portugal. It was first mentioned in England in 1888, when one W. H. Dawe explained it in The Wife's Help to Indian Cookery,

"Vindaloo or Bindaloo--A Portuguese Karhi.... The best Vindaloo is prepared in mustard-oil.... Beef and pork, or duck can be made into this excellent curry."

Traditionally Goan Vindaloo is a mixture of roasted spices and vinegar and, unlike much of the rest of India, the locals were able to use pork because they were predominantly christian and had no dietary laws forbid it.

It has its roots in a dish still found in parts of Portugal today, "Carne Vinha-d'Alhos" a delicious, thin stew of pork, garlic and white wine vinegar. On arrival in India, it was transformed into the spicy dish we are more familiar with today, although I hope you will find the recipe below a suitable alternative to the British curry house version, which seems to want to replicate as much as possible, the act of eating a plate of broken glass.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

INGREDIENTS (feeds 4-6 people)

2lbs of Pork (preferably pork butt/shoulder)

For the Marinade
1/2 Cup palm vinegar (or white vinegar if you can't find palm)
2 inches ginger, peeled
4 Fresh chillies finely minced
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 black cardamom (optional)


SPICES (If you don't have whole spices, use pre ground, just make sure they are fresh)
5 Cloves
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Ground Cumin seeds
1 tsp Ground Coriander seeds
1 tsp Ground Fenugreek seeds
2 tsp Hot chilli powder
1 tsp Ground ginger
1 tsp Ground cinnamon or a cinnamon stick
1 tsp Sugar
½ tsp Salt

1/2 Large white onion (sliced)

Oil for frying

METHOD

Trim the pork of excess fat, cut into 1in cubes and place in a bowl.

Blend the ginger, chilli and garlic to a fine paste with a little water and salt and pour over the pork, massaging well into the meat.

Add the palm vinegar to the bowl and massage into the meat.

Roast the whole spices in a pan and toast until they begin to release their scent.

Grind them and add all the other ingredients except the onion.

Pour over the pork and massage well into the meat.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to marinate for at least two hours. This allows the spices to penetrate and the vinegar to help tenderise the tougher cut of meat.

When ready to cook, heat a little oil in a deep sided pan and fry the onions until gloden.

Pour the entire contents of the bowl into the pan (watch out for the waft of vinegar steam that will shoot up.

Add 1/2 pint of water, stir well and reduce the heat.

Cover the pan and allow to simmer on a low heat for about three hours, checking to see when the meat is cooked and that it does not catch at the bottom of the pan. If it does, add a little more water.

After two hours, remove the lid to allow the sauce to reduce. The end result should be quite a dry curry, perfect to serve over plain white rice

A HOLIDAY WEEKEND WITH MY SANTA CRUZ CREW

Those of you who have found copies of Eat My Globe languishing on shelves at the back of a charity shop somewhere in Northern England, may well be familiar with the short chapter in the book on a memorable Thanksgiving spent in Santa Cruz.

The invitation to join the celebrations came from one Tana Butler. I did not know her at the time but, put my trust in the travel gods, and lugged my rucksack, Big Red to the coast just in time to see a large turkey being stuffed. My brief stay there turned out to be one of the many highlights from my year on the road and I hope I captured at least some of the warmth and generosity shown to me by the people of that crazy little city in my book.

Three years on, I now count Tana as a dear friend and try to get up to see her and her extended network of friends and family as often as I can. It is becoming more hard with my increasingly busy schedule, however, when Sybil announced that she was going to NYC with her girlfriends for the long Labour Day weekend, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to borrow her beat up old car and point it northwards on the I-5.

It’s a long old drive. Five and a half hours to be precise. So, by the time I pulled into Tana’s driveway, I was both exhausted and ravenous. I should not have worried. I met Tana through Internet food discussion forums (remember those?) and recalled that most of her waking thoughts are about what to eat and what her many farmer friends are growing.

One of the best meals of my first stay with her was a simple meal of roast chicken shared with her, her husband, Bob and their young grandson, Logan. It was memorable for all sorts of reasons, the joy of discovering new friendships being first on the list. This visit we began our weekend of good eating in the same spirit. Tana plucked Padron peppers from her garden and made hamburgers patties using grass fed beef from Morris Ranch. I contributed some chilled sherry, Marcona almonds a few slices of decent Manchego and Bob grilled more vegetables from the garden over chunks of guava wood.

We were joined on this occasion by Cynthia Sandberg, the owner of the legendary Love Apple Farm, suppliers of fruits and vegetables to the gastro destination that is restaurant Manresa. She came bearing gifts, including a bottle of very passable wine, which was soon opened and just as soon disappeared. It was joined by enough other wine to ensure that I fell into a deep sleep the moment my head hit the soft pillows Tana had placed on my bed for the night, the sofa.

We made a late start the next morning. After a good breakfast served to soak up some of the booze from the night before, we headed out for a quick tour of Love Apple Farm’s stunning new location on land, which had once been a vineyard owned by The Smothers Brothers, no less. It is still very much a work in progress, but, although Cynthia was hard at work digging beds for the hundreds of varieties of plants she grows, she was happy to take a break and give us the tour. It is going to be a remarkable space, with cabins for farm apprentices to stay in while they learn the ropes, areas to hold classes and about five times the land of the previous location. I can’t wait to return and see it when it is in full swing.

The tour just left us with time to make a pit stop for some provisions on the way home and then back to Tana’s place to begin cooking once more, this time for a ‘pot luck” supper involving fifteen of her friends and relatives. My role was to prepare the protein for the evening, which came in the form of beef and pork from TLC Ranch (run by Tana’s close friends, Rebecca and Jim) and two glorious ducks from Massa Organics.

It didn’t take much pondering to decide what I should cook. By the time the guests began to arrive, the ducks had been stuffed with apples, garlic, onions and herbs and were sizzling to a golden brown in the oven. The beef had been cubed and was reducing in the fiery sauce of a Malaysian rendang and the pork had been filled with a gremolata of herbs, lemon zest and garlic before being wrapped in foil and slow cooked with apples.

The skin and fat from the pork had not been wasted, of course and, by the time Jim and Rebecca arrived, I was able to feed them pork crackling from one of their very own oinkers. Other guests did not come empty handed. There were gloriously rich and savoury baked beans, salads, green bean casseroles, some stunning truffles from Chef, David Jackman of local restaurant, Chocolate and, of course, plenty and I mean plenty of wine.

After supper, we decamped to the sofa and Tana flipped on a recording of my appearance on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” It was my food Network debut and to share it with my Santa Cruz crew was a real thrill, even if they did think that the make up person had made me look like I was wearing lavender eye shadow.

On my final day in the city, we made one more visit to a farm. This one was part of UCSC and is particularly close to Tana’s heart. However, it was not so much the farm she wanted me to see as one particular person who had come to study farming techniques there for a few months.

Hari Mohan Pant is one of the more remarkable men I have ever met. Sixty-nine years of age, he is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army. On leaving military service, Hari returned to his homeland of Bhimtal, in the foothills of the Himalayas to develop a homeopathic medical practice and to teach local people how to farm more effectively. His own studies had brought him to the unlikely setting of the UCSC farm, where he could be found staying in a cabin and living the communal life with other students some forty years his junior.

They may well have had a few years on Hari, but when it came to sheer energy, he had them beaten all hands down. After making us a cup of chai to warm us in the low laying fog, he gave us the grand tour. It was all we could do to keep up with him and his love of the land and the people was tangible. At the end of our time with him, he grabbed a bag from the back seat of our car and insisted on filling it up with fruits and vegetables for us to take home.

That just left time for one more quick meal, at the Bonny Doon Cellar Door Cafe before I had to brave the traffic on my way back to L.A. It was an even longer drive than my outgoing journey as so many people fought their way back to the city. But, it was worth it. Just as it had been worth taking a leap of faith three years ago when Tana sent me an e-mail saying “come and spend Thanksgiving here with us in Santa Cruz”.

And, just as I did three years ago, I left feeling nurtured, nourished and refreshed. God bless my Santa Cruz crew.

P.S - If you are wondering why the pictures look a bit more professional than usual, that's because they are. Tana took them and she knows what she is doing when she points and shoots

POLPETTO:TENTACLES EVERYWHERE

When I was young and handsome – yes, gentle reader, I was that man – I did my courting in two Soho institutions: Kettner’s Champagne Bar, where Eddie7 did the nasty with Lil’ Langtry and The York Minster (aka The French) where I would quaff beer - half pints only - and bucketfuls of kir.

Later, as I was morphing into the grey and grumpy bundle of fun I am today I visited the restaurant above the bar, where Fergus Henderson and his wife Margot were busy plotting and creating the embryonic St John. For the record I quite liked it, HS wasn't so taken.

What a pleasant surprise, then, to find myself back in the old place after so many years in an attractive space now known as Polpetto, the brand spanking new baby sister to the incredibly popular Polpo in West Soho. Owner Russell Norman has continued his love affair with New York’s dining scene with another homage to the gaffs of SoHo and Greenwich Village, a 28 cover Venetian-style bacaro in an area that could certainly do with more decent restaurants. And by and large the compact and bijou Polpetto fits the bill.

As at Polpo things start off with small snacks or cicheti pushed out for a quid or three. I always think these sort of things are better where they interrupt a lively discussion (with plenty of gesticulating, naturally) whilst stood at the bar rather than as part a sit-down meal but there you go – that’s how they roll around these parts.

Of my little bites the best was the eponymous Polpetti which had been bathed in a nicely –concocted marinade and gave lie to the fact that small shellfish are better off deep fried, and Chopped Chicken Liver: as smooth and rich as Leslie Phillips on the pull.

The meatball was good too although more Porky than Ducky. An Anchovy and Chickpea crostino demonstrated that preparation of said legume should be left to cooks from East of the Bosphorus.

Pizzeta Bianca - a popular dish from Polpo – was even better than I remembered: crisp, scorched around the edges, slightly chewy and quite addictive. Even a pizza-hater like HS might be converted. Um, maybe not.

Almost £5 for Zucchini fries sounds like a lot of dosh for veg but you’re probably not going to get too many better versions than the one here: light, crisp and grease-free.

Taking a little break gave me a chance to look down upon the mean streets of Soho which, although it’s been sanitised somewhat over the 35 years I’ve been visiting, still has its pockets of seediness and suspicious goings-on: although furtive calls are now made on mobiles whilst huddled in a doorwell rather than from Red Telephone boxes.

Soft-shell Crab can often be just lumps of mystery fish protein in leaden batter. Here the flesh was good but its carapace wasn't, being soft and spongy. As was a salad of fennel with radishes and ricotta. It may have seemed like a good idea at the conception stage but it turned out very damp and the ricotta had disintegrated.

Squid in its ink tasted fine but could have done with being served in something that retained the heat better. It was non-chewy but the cold, dark inky sauce was not particularly nice lukewarm. Consider ordering some decent bread as well to mop up the sauce.

Pigeon Saltimbocca (Pigeon wrapped in Pancetta) came on a white (grits-like) polenta that had soaked up the meat juices. Unfortunately, the pigeon was overcooked so it was a bit of a relentlessly tough eat. Shame.

Osso Bucco was a winner though. Perfectly cooked risotto, with just the tiniest bite to the rice, had a good saffron kick. A large marrow-filled bone sat in the middle. Stuck to the bone was plenty of meat which came away in soft, rich shreds.. All it lacked was some gremolata to cut the richness. I can see this becoming a very popular dish indeed as the nights draw in.

Thinking it best to avoid any M.Creosote-type incidents I passed on pud and stuck to the classic Mediterranean trifecta of strong espresso (good), a little aguardiente and a cigarette. Sans fag, of course.

There was a bit of unevenness to the cooking but nothing disastrous or that wasn’t made up for by the other good stuff I had. In fact, in certain respects the cooking was better than my last visit to Polpo. Allied to the fact that I could actually see what I was eating – it was lunch, things probably get all dark and mysterious in the evening - meant that if I had a bigger stomach I would have happily carried on eating, drinking and generally enjoying myself until chucked out by the young, smiley (and helpful) staff.

Ahhh…chucked out onto the streets of Soho - now that does bring back some memories.

ROYAL AIR FORCE TEA: TAKING FLIGHT WITH THE RARE TEA COMPANY

Those of you who tune in regularly will know that one of the most important things in my whole life is that first cup of tea in the morning.

I am being rather well behaved right now and am saving it for my return from the gym as I attempt to lose all the poundage I added to my already ample girth during Road Trip USA 2010. It not only restores and refreshes, it also serves to remind me of Blighty on days when the inevitable homesickness that goes with upping sticks to live in another country occurs.

Usually, my cuppa of choice is the estimable Yorkshire Gold from Taylor's of Harrogate. and one of the rules for anyone visiting me from the U.K. is that they must mule in at least 100 teabags for me to add to my stash. However, it would seem that there is very possibly a new sheriff in town.

Last week my good chum Henrietta Lovell from The Rare Tea Company got in touch and asked me if I would like to try her new Royal Airforce Tea. It is a blend of leaves from two estates, one in Darjeeling and one in Malawi. Henrietta is a keen proponent of Malawian tea and I visited tea estates in Darjeeling when I was on the Eat My Globe tour, so it seemed like the perfect match.

Henrietta was kind enough to send a packet stateside and, after letting the loose black leaves brew for about four minutes, I am savouring a large mug of it as we speak. It is a good, old fashioned type of tea. Perfect for the morning heart starter, strong and bright with enough punch to put all life's woes to one side just for a moment, at least.

Tea, as we all now should know does you good, but drinking Royal Airforce Tea also does other people good with 7% of the £5 purchase price going to the RAFA Wings Appeal and a further 3% supporting the RAF museum. None of this would matter, of course if it wasn't damn good tea, but it is and well worth trying.

You can buy it HERE