This Funky Moroccan Butter Ferments Underground

This sounds fascinating to me as someone who loves butter and blue cheese. Alas, I’ve never had the chance to try it.

Have any of you?

I’m surprised preppers haven’t latched onto this. Or maybe they have :joy_cat:

Do we really want to know, tho? :flushed:

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I have never tried it, and in fact have never heard of it before. But I would absolutely try some. I love me some funky cheese.

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Paula Wolfert has several methods of and recipes for making smen in her Morocco cookbooks as well as in her Mediterranean Clay Pot cookbook. So does Mourad Lahlou in his Mourad New Moroccan, including one that includes blue cheese.

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Have you made it, and if so — how did you like it?

I haven’t made any smen recipe, though I’ve always intended to.

The Mourad recipes are an interesting contrast. The traditional recipe is kept in a cool, dark place at room temp for one day to 6 months.

The second recipe is ready to use immediately…“Blue cheese-aged butter.” So I guess it’s "aged’ by blue cheese, not by time.

It involves combining room temperature unsalted butter (1/2 pound, 227 grams) and room temperature blue cheese (preferably cashel, 1.5 tsp, 7 grams) with 1/2 tsp salt (1.5 g, and rolling it up as a cylinder in a sheet of parchment paper. Can be refrigerated 3 months. That’s a very small proportion of blue cheese.

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Sounds fascinating! Thanks for the deets :pray:t2: