Tagine ingredients

• 3 large carrots, scraped, sliced lengthwise and cored
• 1 and a half kilos meaty white fish in chunks (snorr according to Amal is the fish du choix)
• 3 large potatoes, peeled
• 2 small aubergines (tenghel)
• 1 bulb fennel (bisbes)
• 4 long pointy green deseeded peppers (moussa)
• 3 large tomatoes
• 4 small courgettes (tirchri feentz)
• Half a small white cabbage

Lay carrot slices neatly to cover the base of the tagine. Put the fish chunks on top. Layer the vegetables to make a mound in the following order - thickly sliced spuds, aubergines sliced lengthwise, thin fennel wedges, pepper rings, peeled and sliced tomatoes, courgettes scraped and sliced and placed around the veg-mound, topped with thinly sliced cabbage.

Sauce ingredients

• 2 heads garlic peeled and grated (touma)
• Juice of 2 lemons
• Large bunch finely chopped flat-leaved parsley
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons cumin (beldi)
• 3 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons ras el hanout (constituents list to follow, or buy ready ground)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teacup olive oil
• 1 teacup water

Mix ingredients thoroughly, and pour over the tagine ingredients. Place the tagine, covered, on a little Moroccan terracotta barbecue on a good bagful of ashy hot barbecue charcoal, glowing red hot in the middle and let it simmer for 5 hours or so, checking the coals and the contents from time to time. Or, simply pierce the veges (that's what Amal said), pile them up as before with the fish, and simmer gently on a low gas for half an hour or so.

Sprinkle with olives towards the end of cooking. Serve with lots of pebble-dashed barley bread or couscous for sauce mopping purposes.