In comparison to everything else, the onions for the tahini sauce take the longest to cook, so that’s where we’ll start. Add the olive oil to a large skillet (a 12-inch, heavy, cast-iron skillet is just ideal) and set it on medium heat. Let the oiled skillet heat for 1 minute, then add the onions and salt. Give the skillet a good stir so that the onions get a coating of oil, and then drop the heat to low.

You now want the onions to cook very slowly for about 10 minutes, until they soften considerably and turn a very pale golden color as they absorb some of the oil. Give them a few watchful stirs while they cook to avoid any browning at all.

Use a slotted spoon to turn the onions into a mixing bowl that’s easily large enough to hold the rest of the sauce’s ingredients. Take some care to leave as much oil as you can in the skillet – ideally about 3 tablespoons - because that’s where the fish fillets will be heading for their flash-frying.

Now add the tahini paste to the onions, together with the bird’s eye chilies, lemon juice, water, and salt. Stir well. That’s it. Your cook-in tahini sauce is ready. Time now to give the fish its quick marinade.

Place a large baking dish in your oven and turn it to 400F / 200C. Bear in mind that your baking dish should be big enough to hold all the fish fillets in a single layer with a covering of the tahini sauce all over them. It’s also important that the dish and oven have reached that 400F / 200C mark by the time you start flash-frying the fish.

To make the marinade, in a small bowl, thoroughly stir together the lemon juice, lemon zest, cumin, salt, and pepper.

Set your fillets of fish on a large plate and pour over the marinade. Use your fingers to gently give the fillets a complete coating of the marinade. Set the fillets aside for 5 minutes – and no more than 5 minutes - to let them pick up the marinade’s flavors.

During those 5 minutes, you’re aiming to do two things: finish heating your oven and dredge the fillets in the chickpea flour, so they’re ready to be flash fried.

To dredge the fish, spread the chickpea flour right across the surface of a large plate. Now lightly press both sides of each marinated fillet into the flour. Once each fillet has a light coating of the flour, you’re ready to flash-fry them in the big, oily skillet where you cooked the sauce’s onion.

Set your oily skillet on a high heat. As soon as the oil starts to shimmer, add the flour-dredged fillets skin-side down and drop the heat to medium-high. Let the fillets sizzle away on that medium-high heat for 90 seconds. Use a wide spatula or fish slice to turn them so they can fry for another 90 seconds. Good. Time now to sauce the fillets and bake them.

As soon as the fillets are fried, remove the hot baking dish from your 400F / 200C oven, and arrange the still-hot, oily fillets, skin-side down, in a single layer in the dish.

Quickly as you can, pour the tahini sauce over the fillets, so they’re completely covered by the sauce, and return the dish to the oven.

Let the sauced fish bake for about 6 minutes, until you see that the sauce is starting to bubble right across the dish and is just starting to pick up some spots of darkish golden color. Done and ready to serve.

Meanwhile, as the fish is rapidly baking, you’ll have enough time to make the couscous.

So, add the couscous, ground cardamom, dates, and almonds to a pretty serving bowl that’s big enough to hold three times the volume of the dry couscous.

Pour in the boiling water and let the bowl sit for 3 minutes, so the water is absorbed by the couscous. Now use a fork to give the bowl a thorough stir so that everything is fairly evenly combined. You’ll probably find the sliced dates tend to stick together a little, so take a little effort with your stirring to get them roughly separated. Done, and ready to serve as soon as your fish comes out of the oven.

To add the finishing touches, garnish your baked fish with a sprinkling of sumac and parsley.

For the couscous, a little cilantro scattered over the top or arranged around the edges of the serving bowl looks lovely and adds a fresh intensity to the couscous. And a generous squeeze of lemon juice makes the sunshine flavors even brighter.