How to make Moroccan rancid butter – Smen

How to make Moroccan rancid butter – Smen
Moroccan rancid butter, also known locally as Smen is an essential component and a secret ingredient to so many recipes, it adds a unique, salty, earthy and cheesy flavor to couscous and meat recipes, it is also very delicious when added to traditional Moroccan soups.
There are several methods to prepare Moroccan rancid butter – Smen, and this one is the most traditional, it was given to me by a very old lady from the South of Morocco, and trust me, it tastes amazing.
First, you need to make sure that you are only using organic butter, if you can find the unpasteurized one, it would be great and it would even taste much better, nevertheless, you can use any organic butter you can find.
These are the ingredients you need:
Ingredients
  • 500g butter
  • 1 handful of thyme
  • 250ml water
  • 1 tablespoon salt
Instructions
  1. Now, let’s look at how to prepare Moroccan rancid butter – Smen:
    Start by adding thyme and water in a pan, then, bring to a boil, let cool.
  2. Take the butter and sprinkle it with the salt, then add the thyme broth
  3. Work very well the butter with your hands until the ingredients are well mixed
  4. The remaining liquid contains some milk, try to drain the butter well and put it preferably in a clay jar or in a glass bottle.
  5. People used to bury their clay smen jars in the ground, if you can find a nice protected sport in your garden, make a hole and make sure you cover and close your clay jar tightly and then, bury it.
  6. It will be ready in a minimum of a month, but you can leave it for a much longer time, in fact, I have one jar in my garden for two years now and I don’t intended to use it until it reaches four years of age.
Recipe Notes

It lasts for a very long time and in fact, smen which is over a year old is much more expensive than a new one.

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