Fish Tagine with Tomatoes, Olives, and Preserved Lemons

Very flavorful, spicy fish dish - not cooked in a tagine - with excellent instructions.

To prepare this dish, you first make Chamoula, a marinade containing garlic, cumin, salt, paprika, crushed red pepper flakes, the pulp of a preserved lemon, etc. This smelled heavenly - but consider reducing the amount of red pepper flakes. This introduced too much heat for 3/4 of my family.

The fish [I used rock fish] is marinated in the Chamoula for 1 hour, then placed in a casserole dish with thinly sliced carrots and celery, and some green pepper and tomatoes. Then the fish is added, more green pepper, and more tomatoes. The remaining chamoula was placed in the pan before the veggies, then poured over the top. Seal with foil.

The instructions say to bake 300ËšF for 1 hour. I was concerned that this was too long, but the fish came out perfectly! After the 1 hour baking, you pull out the juice (rather than pour, I dusted off my turkey baster and used that), reduce it, and then pour it over the top. Another 10 minutes in the oven, this time at 425ËšF, and its done.

This year my family vowed to not buy those tasteless winter tomatoes - yet this recipe called for 1 lb. I used a combination of canned and roasted tomatoes from last summer (frozen). Can't compare to fresh tomatoes, but it seemed to work out OK.

A relatively easy dish, and somewhat faster cooking than most of the dishes I've prepared from this book. It probably took me about 1 hr 40 minutes in total. Be sure to select thick fish - because it does bake for a fairly long time.

I served this with white rice - helped the heat - and a green vegetable. If I make it again, I'll cut the red pepper flakes to about 1/2 tsp.