One-Pot Pasta · Italian-Era Legacy
Imbakbaka (Mbakbaka)
Photo: Malk sash / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The name imitates the sound of the sauce bubbling away as the pasta cooks in it — the dish is essentially named after the noise the pot makes.
Chunks of hand-broken spaghetti or other short pasta simmer directly in a rich tomato-and-meat sauce with onions, warming spices and often chickpeas, absorbing the liquid until the pasta turns thick and stew-like rather than being boiled and drained.
Why it's made this way: Imbakbaka is a direct culinary fingerprint of Italy's 1911–1943 colonial rule over Libya, and Benghazi's version of this Italian-Libyan classic remains a household comfort food across the city.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
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