Libyan Cuisine - Common Foods and Dishes

Common Foods and Dishes

Bazin is a common Libyan food made with barley flour and a little plain flour, which is then formed into a rounded, smooth dome placed in the middle of the dish. The sauce around the dough is made by frying chopped onions with lamb meat, adding turmeric, salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, fenugreek, sweet paprika, and tomato paste. Potatoes may also be added, eggs are boiled and arranged around the dish, and the dish is often served with lemon and fresh or pickled chillies known as amsayar. Batata mubattana (filled potato) is another popular dish in Libyan cuisine that consists of fried potato pieces filled with spiced minced meat and covered with egg and breadcrumbs.

Additional common foods and dishes include:

• Asida is an Arab dish made up of a cooked wheat flour lump of dough, sometimes with added butter or honey.
• Bureek, turnovers
• Couscous, a North African dish of semolina
• Breads
• Harissa is hot chili sauce commonly eaten in North Africa. Main ingredients include bird's eye chili peppers, serrano peppers and other hot chillis and spices such as garlic paste, coriander, red chili powder, caraway and olive oil.
• Hassaa, a gravy
• Magrood, Date-filled cookies and Ghreyba, butter cookies
• Mhalbiya, a rice pudding
• Mutton, meat of an adult sheep
• Rub is a thick dark brown, very sweet syrup extracted from dates or carob that is used widely in Libya, usually with Asida
• Shakshouka is prepared using aged mutton or lamb jerky as the meat base of the meal, and is considered a traditional breakfast meal.
• Sherba, lamb and vegetable soup with mint and tomato paste
• Tajeen, spiced lamb with a tomato and paprika sauce
• Usban, a traditional Libyan sausage