Samantha Clark on vegan food

Sam and Sam Clark

Husband and wife team Sam and Samantha Clark share the same career as well as the same name. The pair met in the kitchens of The River Café. They married and spent their three-month honeymoon travelling Spain, Morocco and the Middle East exploring the regions' cuisines and collecting a fabulous array of flavours. They brought the inspiration of these travels and their own cookery expertise back to the UK and opened a restaurant in London. For ten years Moro has been one of London’s most exciting and critically acclaimed restaurants, featuring high quality modern, eclectic Moorish-influenced dishes.

They may not be flagged up as such, but Moro’s dishes include a long list of exciting vegan flavours, involving ingredients both commonplace and exotic, proving that you don't need to compromise on flavour if you're a vegan. Here, Samantha Clark shares her thoughts and recipes, offering vegan options with a Moro flavour.

Moro tip: "Pulses are a 'superfood'. Highly satisfying, highly nutritious, wonderfully creamy textured when cooked down; they are a key vegan ingredient. Once our pulses are cooked we add browned garlic and lashings of olive oil, or lemon juice and olive oil – fantastic!"

Preserved lemons

Preserved lemon is an ingredient traditionally used in many Moroccan dishes as a seasonal substitute for fresh lemon. Of course, you’ll never want for lemons in the shops these days, but before fruit knew air miles there was the serious prospect of losing your lemons for months. Preserving the lemons was the best approach to maintaining lemons out of season and, fortunately, it provided a new citrus flavour to dishes.

Try using a quarter or a half of a preserved lemon in a dish where you might have used lemon juice or zest and see what new flavours you get. Or try this delicious warm celery salad.

• Celery and preserved lemon salad by Sam and Sam Clark

Moro tip: "The key with working with preserved lemons is to wash them well, then remove the pulp, which will be too salty. There is so much flavour in the skin, you hardly need any at all to give a dish its distinctive flavour."

Pomegranate molasses

Pomegranate molasses is Middle Eastern in origin, common to Iranian and Lebanese cooking and dressings. A thick sweet and sour syrup, it makes for an intriguing ingredient and is a classic Moro addition to recipes. The increasing popularity of pomegranates molasses has made it easier to find, but the most common place to buy this rich sticky treat is Lebanese and Iranian shops and suppliers.

• Winter tabbouleh by Sam and Sam Clark
• Chickpeas with pomegranate molasses by Sam and Sam Clark

Moro tip: "Pomegranate molasses and chickpeas is a classic combination. We use them with fried garlic and saffron for a Moro twist."

Tahini

Tahini is a thick paste made from sesame seeds. It's most commonly used as a flavouring ingredient in Middle Eastern dishes, combined with chickpeas to make hummus, or grilled aubergine to make baba ganoush. Tahini's flavour and adaptability also makes it an ideal base to sauces to accompany vegetable or pulse-based dishes.

• Warm pumpkin and chickpea salad with tahini by Sam and Sam Clark
• Quick hummus and olives by Jill Dupliex from Saturday Kitchen

Moro tip: "Tahini is perfect for vegans as it creates a creamy sauce when added to lemon juice and water. Mix it to the consistency of single cream with a little crushed garlic and it’s like seasoned yoghurt. But never mix it with yoghurt."

Harissa

Harissa is a fiery condiment from the Middle East. Combining red chillies, peppers and spices this is not for the faint-hearted, but it provides a real boost as an accompaniment to vegetables and pulses. Try serving a bowl of hummus with a teaspoon of harissa placed in the centre, a deep red decoration waiting to catch the mouths of the unwary.

• Harissa by Sam and Sam Clark

Moro tip: "Harissa spices everything up. The recipe here is the Moro standard, but you can vary the flavour by adding the citrus tang of half a chopped preserved lemon, or a fragrant sweetness with rosewater."

Argan oil

Argan oil is a robust oil made largely in Morocco from the nuts of the argan tree. The nut is very difficult to remove from its sturdy fruit and the nuts were originally harvested, not from the tree, but from the droppings of the goats that climbed the trees and ate the fruit. It's a delicious, nutty oil for adding flavour to dressings and soups.

• Dried pea soup with cumin and argan oil by Sam and Sam Clark

Inspired by flavour

The flavours and ingredients above are only the tip of the iceberg for vegan cooking. The nature of Moroccan and Middle Eastern cuisine, in utilising plant and nut oils rather than dairy products in its cooking, affords the vegan cook a wide array of inspirations and ingredients. Be it original salads, fabulous pulses or dairy-free desserts, there are a wealth of options that stand on their own merits rather than being considered 'vegan alternatives'.

Moro tip: "I'd quite happily cope with a vegan lifestyle. There are endless variations, ingredients and flavours and with Moro’s influences we don't have to go out of our way to provide plenty of vegan options."

Try some more vegan recipes from Casa Moro:

• Morels with butter beans, tomatoes and sweet herbs by Sam and Sam Clark
• Grilled aubergine salad by Sam and Sam Clark
• Vegetable paella with artichokes and piquillo peppers by Sam and Sam Clark
• Saffron potatoes by Sam and Sam Clark
• Barley bread by Sam and Sam Clark
• Orange and date salad with rosewater by Sam and Sam Clark
• Blood orange and rosewater sorbet by Sam and Sam Clark