Name: Complet Poisson
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Tunisian
Ingredients: 4 whole sea bream or bass, about 300 g each, gutted; 3 tbsp olive oil; 1 ½ tsp fine sea salt; 1 lemon, sliced; 3 green peppers; 3 tomatoes; 2 garlic cloves; 4 tbsp olive oil; 1 tsp ground caraway; ¾ tsp fine sea salt; 600 g potatoes, cut into chips; 400 ml sunflower oil, for frying; 4 tbsp harissa; 100 g olives; 4 tbsp Egyptian-style tahina or plain tahini sauce; 2 lemons, cut into wedges

Complet Poisson

The Tunisian fish plate: grilled fish with fried peppers, potatoes, a salad, tastira and harissa, all on one dish. An assembly rather than a recipe, and everything matters.

1 hr 10 min total Serves 4 servings Medium

Tastira — peppers and tomatoes fried hard and then chopped — is the component people leave out and it is the one that ties the plate together, bridging the plain grilled fish and the harissa. Everything is cooked separately and assembled at the end, and each element should be at its own right temperature: the fish hot, the potatoes hot, the salad cold and the tastira warm. Serving it all at one temperature flattens the whole thing.

The Method for Complet Poisson

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Slash the fish twice on each side, rub with 3 tbsp oil and the salt, and fill the cavities with lemon slices.
For the tastira, char the peppers and tomatoes whole in a dry pan or under a grill for 12 minutes until blistered. Peel, deseed and chop them roughly with the garlic.
Fry the chopped tastira in 4 tbsp oil with the caraway and salt for 6 minutes, until thick and jammy. Keep warm.
Fry the potato chips in the sunflower oil at 180°C / 355°F for 8 minutes, until crisp and gold. Drain and salt.
Grill the fish 6 to 7 minutes a side, until the skin blisters and the flesh pulls cleanly from the bone.
Assemble each plate: fish in the centre, chips and tastira beside it, olives and a spoonful of harissa on the rim.
Serve with tahina and lemon wedges, and eat with your hands and bread.

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Worth Getting Right

Do not skip the tastira. It is what joins the plate together.
Everything at its own temperature — the salad cold, the rest hot.
Assemble at the last second.

Ingredient Swaps

An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Serve It With

Khobz tabouna · Slata tounsia · Cold beer

Leftovers and Storage

Assemble fresh. The tastira keeps 3 days refrigerated and is good on its own with bread.

Complet Poisson Nutrition

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (weights that include bone are counted as if all of it were eaten, so the figures run high). Why some recipes have none.

Dairy-Free No Added Sugar