The ingredient list for this tasty dish from James Peterson may be long, but once you have them assembled, the actual cooking time is about half an hour. Cook onion, carrots and garlic, add spices and tomatoes and then add herbs, raisins, almonds and shrimp. Serve on top of rice or couscous.

Avoiding Additives and Preservatives

Make sure your spices don’t contain colour or anti-caking agents. Your butter should contain only cream. Saffron can contain colour, so I omitted it. Make sure your raisins and almonds are additive-free. Look for frozen shrimp preserved in salt only. I used Belazu Rose Harissa, which contains no preservatives and omitted the preserved lemon.

Cook onion, carrots and garlic

Add spices and tomatoes

Add herbs, raisins, almonds and shrimp and simmer for about 3 minutes

Shrimp tagine

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped fine

4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced

3 cloves garlic, chopped

3 tablespoons (15 ml) butter

One 1-inch (2.5-cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated fine

1 teaspoon (5 ml) cumin

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground turmeric or 1 tablespoon fresh turmeric, grated

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon saffron threads, soaked for 30 minutes in 1 tablespoon water

6 tomatoes, peeled, stemmed, seeded, and chopped

1 small bunch cilantro, large stems removed

Leaves from 1 small bunch mint

3 tablespoons (45 ml) golden raisins (sultanas)

3 tablespoons (45 ml) slivered almonds, toasted

½ preserved lemon, cut into ¼ -inch/0.64-cm dice (about 2 tablespoons/30 ml

after dicing), rinsed in a strainer (optional)

30 large or 18 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined

¾ to 1 cup (187.5 to 250 ml) bottled harissa sauce, for serving

Preparation:

In a heavy-bottomed pot large enough to hold the whole tagine, cook the onion, carrots, and garlic in the butter over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the carrots soft, about 15 minutes.

Add the ginger, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, cloves, and saffron with its soaking liquid to the carrot mixture. Gently stir the mixture—avoid breaking up the carrots—and cook over low to medium heat for about 2 minutes more.

Add the tomatoes, cover the pot, and simmer on low heat, covered, for 10 minutes more. Chop the cilantro and mint and stir into the sauce with the raisins, almonds, preserved lemon, if using, and shrimp. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. Serve with couscous or rice and harissa sauce. Serves 6.

From Cooking by James Peterson