Bedouin BBQ · Buried & Slow-Cooked
Zarb (Bedouin Underground Barbecue)
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: فيصل العدناني (Faisal Al-Adnani) / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The meat and vegetables cook for hours without anyone checking on them — the sealed sand pit is the oven, and opening it too early lets the heat escape.
Marinated lamb or chicken is layered on metal racks over vegetables, sealed into a metal drum, lowered into a pit lined with hot coals, and covered with sand to trap the heat for several hours. Sinai's Bedouin-run beach camps in Dahab and around South Sinai dig up the buried oven in front of guests at sunset.
Why it's made this way: The underground pit oven let nomadic Bedouin communities cook a full, tender meal in the desert without a fixed kitchen, and the technique remains central to Sinai's Bedouin hospitality today.
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