bazeen — Libya

Bazeen is a Libyan dish built around a firm, smooth barley dough shaped into a dome and served with a spiced lamb and onion sauce poured around and over it, meant to be eaten by hand from the shared plate rather than portioned out with cutlery. It is reported widely as a dish of Libya, and it also appears in Tunisia, notably around Sfax, where a version is prepared for Eid al-Adha as part of the festive table; a similar dish, assida, is reported from Yemen, pointing to a wider family of stiff grain pastes eaten with a savory sauce. Barley flour is stirred into boiling water and beaten vigorously with a sturdy stick, called a magraf, until it forms a smooth, elastic paste; the paste is then shaped by hand into a dome on the serving plate, its surface smoothed and sometimes ridged with the fingers or the stick itself. Separately, lamb pieces are browned with onions, then simmered with tomato paste, turmeric and paprika until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened into a rich coating. Recipes vary in the flour used, pure barley, wheat, or a blend of the two, in whether the dome is finished briefly in the oven for a firmer crust, and in how much tomato and spice go into the sauce, with some households preferring a drier, plainer dough and others a richer, more heavily spiced one.