Smen (fermented Moroccan butter) ✦

Smen (beurre fermenté marocain)

What it is

Salted butter is packed into an unglazed earthenware jar, sealed and buried, where it ages for months or years; in the Middle Atlas a jar laid down at a daughter's birth is opened at her wedding. What comes out is closer to a washed-rind cheese than to butter, and it is used at that strength.

In the kitchen

Work in grams: a piece the size of an almond seasons a tagine for six, and twice that takes the dish over. Melt it into the couscous or stir it into the sauce at the end, where the aroma survives.

Goes with

Couscous Lamb Saffron Cumin Chickpeas Preserved lemon Honey Mint

Same species

Clarified butter Ghee Laminating butter (dry butter, 84%) Niter kibbeh Raw-milk butter

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