About an hour’s drive south of Marrakech on the road to Ourika, towards the High Atlas mountains with their scrub-clad crags, gorges and red riverbeds, there’s a turning to a town called Aghmat. This was an important Berber city in medieval times. Now, it’s a sleepy place where stray dogs lope, widows lean on walking sticks, and boys hang out in groups, or lounge with feet up on car bumpers. They stare candidly as you drive through the dusty streets.

For years, my father and stepmother lived just outside this town. They had hoped to live out their days there, but it wasn’t to be. Lord knows what has happened to the house they built now: it may be inhabited by a local grandee, or by another Westerner, or abandoned to nature. Its walls were made of the local baked earth, which needs to be reapplied and repaired every year without fail, as this is a place where the elements – the winter frosts, lashing spring rain and parching July sun – are far mightier than the hand of man. I wonder if its olive groves and orange trees are now tangled with weeds, the pergola derelict, and the house, with its large, airy, blissfully shady rooms, invaded by the frogs that used to congregate in the reed-fringed swimming pool every evening to strike up their noisy serenade.

It’s a lost time. My way of experiencing Morocco now is via the kitchen: couscous aux sept légumes; a crisp, savoury-sweet bstilla; the wonderful breakfast pancakes known as msemen, eaten with fig jam; or a sticky pot-luck tagine slow-cooked in earthenware. Tagine – to the Western ear the very word evokes the stew’s glossy stickiness. It's a doddle to make. If you haven’t got the proper eponymous earthenware vessel, use enamelled cast iron, but don’t expect the same soul. Tagines are fit for purpose, adept at doing their work of reducing, concentrating and melding flavours. So at any rate, choose a pan with shallow sides and a large surface area to allow the proper evaporation. I use my Le Creuset shallow casserole for large quantities.

Number one in the tagine hall of fame is lamb with prunes and almonds. Everyone has a slightly different take: here is mine, humbly offered. More or less any cut of lamb is fine. In rural Morocco, it’s all the same – leg, scrag, head, tail: you pay the same price for one bit of the animal as for another.

Lamb and Prune Tagine

Ingredients

• 1kg diced lamb leg, shoulder or neck
• 1 large onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 stick celery, finely sliced
• 2 medium carrots, cut into large chunks
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 handful of plain blanched almonds
• 750ml lamb or chicken stock
• A handful of pitted prunes
• 2tbsp lemon juice
• I small bunch coriander, leaves picked and stalks chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped mint

Method

Fry the onions, garlic, celery and carrots with the cumin, cinnamon, ginger, bay leaf and pepper on a low-medium heat until the onions are soft and translucent. Then remove these to a plate.

Turn the heat up slightly, add the diced lamb and brown evenly on all sides. You might want to do this in small batches to avoid crowding the pan. Towards the end of the meat cooking time, throw in your handful of almonds.

Return the onion mixture to the pan, pour in the stock and add the prunes, fruit spread, lemon juice and coriander stalks. Season generously. Bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down. Simmer uncovered for 30 mins, then cover and simmer for a further hour and a half. More, if you like. Sometimes I put the tagine in the oven and forget about it for a while. Or try to – it smells maddeningly good.

Check the seasoning, adding a little more salt and lemon if it’s a touch too sweet (though remember, like many Moroccan dishes, it’s supposed to be sweetish). Serve, scattered with the chopped mint and coriander leaves, with wholewheat couscous or bulgur wheat soaked (or cooked, in the case of the bulgur) in stock, drizzled with olive oil and scattered with a handful of toasted pine nuts.

Ourika.

Serves 4