From time to time you might want to give a little razzle to your rice, or kick start your couscous. Or you might want to give a Moroccan flavour to meat or chicken.

All you need, to make like a Marakchi is a spoonful of Ras el Hanout, otherwise known as Top of the Shop, a mixture of up to 40 different spices that may or may not have aphrodisiac qualities.

Ingredients

• A small bunch of parsley finely chopped
• A small bunch of coriander finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic finly chopped
• A small head of cabbage finely sliced, parboiled and drained
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp paprika
• Salt
• Olive oil

The combination of fish, fruit and sugar sounded at best disgusting, so we had to try it. It was really good.

• 1 and a half kilos snorr (meaty cylindrical white fish)
• 3 or 4 onions sliced
• 3 or 4 tomatoes, peeled and sliced
• 1 cup soaked sultanas or choppped dried apricots

Layer the above in a tagine in the order given.

Ingredients

• I red onion chopped fine
• 2 long green peppers seeded and chopped fine
• Olive oil
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsps salt

Cook till soft in a large pan with a lid. Then add

For 4

• 1 chicken
• 1 red onion
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 4 tsps minced fresh coriander
• 1 lime
• 1 and a half tsps pepper
• 2 tsps cumin
• 2 tsps ground ginger
• 1 tsp Ras el hanout
• 1 envelope saffron
• 2 large pinches salt
• Half a preserved lemon
• Olive oil

Wash whole chicken with salt and water and put in pan with lid. Add all the rest of the ingredients except the oil, using only the flesh of the preserved lemon, and a cup of water. Boil for 10 minutes then turn it over and add more water, doing this every ten minutes or so. After 40 minutes prod the chicken all over with a knife and give it another 10 minutes or so. Then put it into an oven dish in a hot oven to roast for 30 minutes. Add two tablespoons of olive oil to the chicken juice in the saucepan and boil it to reduce it to a sauce. Cut lemon peel into strips to use as decoration.