Pomegranate, Prune, Lamb and Black Olive Tagine

I'm very OCD about the theory of what goes around comes around, so whenever something bad happens (this tragic day, for example) I look forward to the good thing about to come. Sadly, this often means I feel afraid when something goes right for a change, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. This theory worked for my tagine, as my mediocre Brownies and various other depressing components of today, made this taste even better.
This tagine is spicy and warming, with an unexpected freshness from the pomegranate. Moroccan food typically blurs the expectation that fruit should be kept for pudding, but this still needs to be kept super savoury; the salty-sour capers and intensely dark saltiness in the form of nice Greek black olives (I don't mind pitted as long as they're proper not plasticky) help that. There are lots of ingredients, which makes me question whether they are all necessary, but I suppose if you took one singer out of a choir they would be missed in the harmony? I dunno. I haven't been able to go to choir since I started astronomy.
1)I didn't have an onion which would be the regular way to start any stew/casserole/tagine so I improvised with some white cabbage. If you're not in such an onion-less predicament, use 1 large white onion, although if you can't face chopping I'm a convert towards frozen ready chopped onions. I finely chopped a quarter of a head of white cabbage and cooked it in some oil when I first made this, after tweaking I found great heat and flavour with a whole jar of harissa paste. After it began to soften, I added the many spices: a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric and ginger. Cook the spices vigilantly, as they can catch.
2)After the onion goes soft, pour in 1 litre of pomegranate juice, use some of it to clean out the harissa jar and bring to the boil. Pomegranate juice is just to enhance the fruitiness, but you could also use red wine or marsala or diluted port. Never underestimate the cheap, shortcut flavour cooking with alcohol can provide. Also, to further make this Moroccan magic, 2 tbsp sour pomegranate molasses.
3)To the pot, add 150g prunes, the same of black olives, 4 tbsp capers and 2 star anise. After that, add 4 seared lamb leg chops or 700g seared lamb shoulder, neck, breast, shank or any lamb cut that stews well and pour in water until everything is just covered. Simmer until a little reduced and then cover and cook in the oven at 160 degrees for about an hour to make the lamb go really tender.
4)This step is great for getting ahead which I had to do as I won't be at home to cook because of the school production (I'm holding back tears right now) so make this a few days ahead and just leave to sit in the fridge for a few days. It deepens the flavour and lets everything  amalgamate. It also takes the edge off the spice; it's still hot but not quite as raw.
5)To serve, cover some cous cous seasoned with salt and paprika with boiled water and leave to sit for about 5 minutes, before stirring in a generous handful of pomegranate seeds. Save the skins and some seeds to squeeze some fresh juice into the reheated tagine, to bring it back to life before serving.
Note: if you have a real tagine, and I mean the cooking one, after you've seasoned it for its cooking  (this must be done once the tagine is first bought you can cook the tagine over an incredibly low flame or a heat diffuser and then cover with the conical, teepee shaped hat and cook over the flame- it doesn't need to go in the oven with its hat on.