friederike's Reviews
10 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 10Sort by: Title 
| Date | Rating
The Moro Cookbook
By Samantha Clark, Samuel Clark, Pia Tryde
Ebury Press - 2003
Aubergine and Tomato Pilav : page 173
This can be a very nice dish, especially if you take care 1. not to burn the rice while cooking (which, to be honest, is quite difficult without stirring), and 2. not to add too much liquid and overcook the whole thing. Tastewise it's a wonderful side dish.
useful (0)
Aubergines with Garlic, Mint and Chilli : page 42
Very, very delicious, and could have been great if there hadn't been this excessive use of oil.
According to the recipe, you're supposed to fry the aubergines in 750ml of sunflower oil. That's deep-frying rather than frying, is my impression. I tried to use more oil than my instincts would allow me, and I estimate that I used about 200-300ml of oil. I didn't serve the dish until the following evening, by which time I had to drain the aubergines from an enourmous amount of oil three times. Seriously - next time just brush them with a little oil as you're used to and you'll be fine. Similarly, I didn't get why they specified 5 tablespoons of olive oil for frying a mere three garlic cloves. You'd suspect they have friends in the oil business.
Other than that, it was a really delicious and intriguing dish. It reminded of the Courgette, Chilli and Mint Pizzas I made a while ago (and I could have sworn they were made with aubergine instead of courgette!). Serves several as a part of a Mezze table, serves two as a Vegetarian main dish (in the latter case, you might consider serving it with some yoghurt; in the former case I assume your Mezze table will feature something yoghurty anyway).
And don't eat this before going on a date. Or dancing class. Or conducting salary negotiations. Well, you get the point...
useful (1)
Beetroot with Yoghurt : page 40
Really nice dish, and really easy too! The garlic proved a welcome contrast to the sweet taste of the beetroot (we used three cloves instead of only one, though I wouldn't use more than that).
We served this with Chicken Wings with Cumin, Lemon and Garlic, a good combination!
Technically, this was listed as a Mezze, so actually this should be classified as an Appetizer. But it worked excellently as a side dish, so why not?
Edited 10 Sept. 2012:
We made this again and served it as part of a mezze platter together with Chicken Wings with Cumin, Lemon and Garlic, Saffron Cauliflower, Coconut Prawn Skewers and some Turkish flatbread, and it was great! A real blessing, too, because you could prepare it in advance and serve at room temperature.
Edited 29 June 2013:
Cooked (together with Classic Baked Chicken) while travelling and staying at a B&B - a really useful, simple recipe!
useful (1)
Chickpea Salad : page 246
Very delicious, and soo easy - it just took us 15 minutes to prepare! The fresh herbs are essential, don't skip or replace them. I was a bit worried that a dish as simple as this one would suffer if you used canned chickpeas instead of fresh ones - it didn't, or at least not to a degree I would really notice. Definitely a keeper!
useful (1)
Very delicious! It's probably very similar to Tagine of Monkfish, Potatoes, Cherry Tomatoes and Olives; we definitely had the same problem with the sauce that was too thin. We didn't grill the peppers whole but cut them into strips and fried them. DH suggests shortening the cooking time of the peppers and tomatoes, in order to have some bite in the final dish, and also thought that the dish tasted just a tad sour.
Edited 13 February 2016:
I finally compared two recipes I thought were merely similar, this one and Modern Moroccan's Tagine of Monkfish, Potatoes, Cherry Tomatoes and Olives, and it turns out they are near-identical! This one uses just any white fish and four green peppers, while the other one uses monkfish and two green peppers, but that's about it!
useful (0)
Patatas a lo Pobre / Poor Man's Potatoes : page 230
Not so nice. The potatoes were quite soggy and oily. Although the recipes also uses lots of onions, garlic and bell peppers, it was quite flavourless. Not recommended.
useful (0)
Very delicious! The chicken meat was very tender (though DH thought it could have cooked a tiny bit longer - I guess that was because we only used chicken thighs), and was served with a really nice sauce. Ideal for traveling as it only uses very few basic ingredients.
useful (0)
This was very, very delicious - but I really wouldn't serve it to guests again, it just looked too much like a dish gone wrong! We cooked the milk until it looked like grains.
This recipe was a lot simpler than the one we made a few weeks ago - and a lot clearer in the instructions as well!
On the downside, it also contains the risk that the meat will be done long before the sauce is ready and might even end up a little dry. Like Barbara, we took out the meat at a certain point to continue to reduce the sauce; unfortunately, though, the meat had already become a very little dry in the less fatty places. I think that the meat might also be prone to drying out because the dish isn't closed off hermetically which means that the meat that sticks out of the sauce tends to be colder, and therefore doesn't reach the temperature at which collagen begins to melt (read All About Braising to find out more). I wonder whether it would make sense to take out half of the milk after about half the braising time and reduce that while the pork continues to cook fully covered.
useful (1)
Prawns with Spiced Tomato Sauce with Caraway : page 106
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! It's a great dish, absolutely delicious, slightly hot but really really good, one of my new favourites!
useful (1)
Roast Chicken with Harissa : page 217
Very delicious, and so easy! Just rub the chicken with Harissa and roast. My chicken was just 900g, so it was already done after 45 minutes.
I opted not to serve it with Patas Bravas, as recommended, but just fried potatoes to keep it simple - good pairing! The Spicy Cucumber Salad I served as well was equally delicious, but a less well-chosen pairing.
useful (0)