Libyan Recipes

Mbakbaka (Libyan Pasta Stew)

Mbakbaka, also written imbakbaka, is Libya's one pot pasta stew and it is a direct product of Italian colonisation. Italy occupied Libya from 1911 to 1943, pasta arrived with the occupation, and Libyan cooks absorbed it into a North African spice framework rather than adopting Italian technique alongside it. The result is a pasta dish that no Italian would recognise. Turmeric, ginger, curry powder, chilli and mixed spices go into a tomato base with lamb or beef, and the pasta cooks directly in that liquid rather than being cooked separately and sauced afterwards. Potatoes go in too. Cooking the pasta in the sauce is the defining decision: the starch thickens the liquid and the pasta absorbs the spice, which is what makes it a stew rather than pasta with sauce on it. Macaroni elbows are the traditional shape, and ditalini, gemelli and other small pastas all suit it for the same reason: the tubes and twists hold the sauce. Harissa is a common addition for heat. The comparison people reach for is minestrone, which captures the one pot logic and misses the spicing entirely. It is winter food and family food, and it is eaten across Libya and among the Libyan diaspora.

★★★★★Highest Rated

28 minEasyLibya

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

Aslooz (Libyan Couscous-Based Dish)

Aslooz is a Libyan couscous dish named after a plant, and the plant is the reason it belongs to a season rather than to a calendar. Aslooz is a wild weed that grows across the countryside and the mountain regions of western Libya, gathered rather than farmed, and harvested in a narrow window through January and February. It is picked from roadsides and hillsides in the Nafusa mountains and the western districts, and only the tender twigs and flowering branches are used. Because it grows wild and its season is short, aslooz has never been a commercial crop, and it is effectively unavailable outside Libya. Libyan families abroad substitute, most often asparagus with dill, sometimes carrot with cumin leaves, and this recipe is written that way. Everything about it is plain: steamed couscous, a tomato base, a wild green and a carrot sauce sharpened with lemon and chilli. Libyans describe it as cheap and cheerful and treat it as a family dish, made and eaten together rather than served to guests. The couscous is steamed over the greens so it takes their flavour from below, which is the technique that separates it from a couscous simply mixed with vegetables, and it is what a Libyan cook would notice first if it were skipped.

★★★★★Highest Rated

1 hrMediumLibya

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

Haraimi (Libyan Spicy Fish Stew)

Haraimi is fish cooked in a fiercely spiced tomato sauce, and it is among the dishes most identified with Libya. It is quick, it is hot, and it is eaten with bread to mop the sauce, which is generally reckoned to be the best part. Its origins lie with the Libyan Jewish community. Libya had a Jewish population of several thousand within living memory, and haraimi was their dish before it became a staple in every Libyan household. Very few Jews remain in Libya today, and the dish has outlasted the community that created it, which is worth recording rather than passing over. Italian colonial rule is the other influence the source points to. Caraway is the spice that makes it. Added near the end so its aroma survives, it gives haraimi a warm, slightly aniseed note that distinguishes it from the many other Mediterranean fish-in-tomato dishes. Lemon juice goes in at the very end for the same reason. Tuna is used here, and any chunky firm fish works, since the flesh has to hold together in the sauce. It is served warm or at room temperature as an appetizer, or as a main with couscous or rice.

★★★★★Highest Rated

35 minEasyLibya

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

Asida (Flour Pudding)

Asida is a cooked flour pudding from the Maghreb, eaten with honey or date syrup and melted butter. Its first recorded appearance is in the Arabic cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh, around the tenth century, which makes it one of the older dishes in this collection with a documented date. It is communal food. Like bazeen, asida is served on a large flat plate called a gas'a and eaten with the fingers, though spoons are used. The distinction the source draws between the two is worth keeping: bazeen has Amazigh origins and is purely North African, while asida has an Arabic name and versions of it are made across the Arabian Peninsula as well. In Libya it is a breakfast dish, eaten to carry someone through a working day, and it appears at celebrations: births, Eid, Mawlid. The plain version is simply flour cooked in water, turned out, and served with a hollow pressed into the top for honey or date syrup, with melted butter or ghee poured around it. This particular recipe is a considerably richer version built on a date paste with cardamom, cinnamon, fenugreek, saffron, rose water and walnuts, which is a celebration preparation rather than the everyday one.

35 minMediumLibya

Recipe by Blessing · Africook