The Hirshon Jordanian Herb-Flavored Ghee – Samneh Baladieh Balqawieh – السمنة البلقاوية البلدية

My glorious Citizens! To honor the recent end of the Eid al-fitr holiday, I wish to share a new treat I recently discovered from My favorite local Jordanian restaurant in Oakland! They make an exceptional toum – the unspeakably delicious Middle Eastern garlic condiment that makes My life complete – as well as this new treat of Jordanian samneh (and they ship all their condiment offerings via here – they are ALL HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). Samneh is a complex herbed and spiced ghee that will assuredly make your day as much as it did Mine – be advised that both samneh and toum deserve a place on your Eid table – or on ANY table at ANY time, for that matter!

Samneh, as just noted, is clarified butter that is then spiced (and sometimes fermented in jars) and stored for months, or even years, allowing it to develop strong and nutty flavors – similar to Moroccan smen and the fermented and smoked Yemenite butter Semneh, which are of similar ilks. During the clarifying process, milk solids, impurities, and water are removed, allowing the samneh to be preserved without refrigeration, which has been essential in a warm climate and among people who were traditionally nomadic.

During the spring, the nomadic Bedouins who breed sheep use the milk from a ewe, who just gave birth, to make musk-flavored samneh baladieh with turmeric, nutmeg, and cracked wheat. Samneh is also a particular feature of Palestinian cuisine with a different range of spices and herbs. Making smen, and aging it until pungent, is a Berber tradition in Morocco.

Mixing it with hot couscous can add a distinctive buttery flavor and help to separate the grains. The Ethiopian clarified spiced butter with fenugreek, Niter Kebbeh, gives doro wat, a traditional Ethiopian stew, a delectable bittersweet flavor. This pure source of fat is commonly used, with regional differences, as a spread for bread, to flavor rice and stews, frying oil, and as a shortening in flakey Arabic pastries.

Both samneh and its herb/spice flavoring blend known as hwajeh are ancient and integral parts of Jordanian cuisine and the history of both are most exhaustively covered in two individual posts I found on the exceedingly erudite food history site fondazioneslowfood.com – I have combined them together here for reading clarity:

السمنة البلقاوية البلدية
The earliest records of the production of Samneh Baladieh Balqawieh, or Balqa Ghee, date back to the 13th century B.C. and refer to the Mo’ab kingdom, which at the time occupied the western part of Jordan, near the present-day Dead Sea; here, communities of farmers and Bedouins used to produce Samneh and sell it in the markets of the main cities (research on Agriculture in Jordan and Palestine between 1864-1918). In particular, in the Al-Balqa area, the tradition of Samneh Baladieh is of great importance, so much so that the name of the area characterises that of the product (‘Samneh Balqawyeh’ means Balqa ghee).

Samneh Baladieh Balqawieh is a traditional method of preservation involving the clarification of butter made from raw sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, or both, flavoured with a mixture of wild herbs gathered from pastures near the villages, called Hwajeh. The ghee is produced in spring, at the peak of herb flowering, when the milk is also richer and more intensely yellow, and is consumed throughout the following year.

The difference between Baladieh Balqawieh and the ghee produced in other countries is the addition of the Hwajeh blend, which is mainly composed of handagug (the white melitoto or Melilotus albus), which makes up about 70% of the blend, hulbah (fenugreek or Trigonella foenum-graecum), mallisah (luisa grass or Aloysia citriodora Ortega.), showmar (fennel or Foeniculum vulgare (L.) Mill.) and qaisoum (Achillea biebersteinii Afan).

The locals spend days searching for the herbs, collecting them, drying them in the sun and then pulverising them to produce different mixtures according to various family traditions. The herb mixtures are wrapped in a cloth used to make cheese and added to the ghee during the clarification process. Hwajeh in Arabic is derived from the word Haja “need”, accordingly hawajeh in the culinary sense means “the needed dried herb and spice mix used to flavour the food in the Arab world”. Each region or area has their own variation of hawajeh with various contents and uses.

Local communities around Jordan use a mix of wild dried herbs in their hwajeh mainly to infuse the traditional ghee/samneh baladieh. However, hwajeh can be also used as a spice to flavour various traditional dishes. The content of the mix may differ from one place to another, nonetheless, Al-Balqa area is famous for its hwajeh, that will be described here.

Al-Balqa hwajeh contains around 20 wild dried herbs and plants. Since each family has its own formula of the herbs that use in different quantities, we will mention the main basic herbs that they have in common. Some might add more than 20 herbs and wild plants to their Hwajeh.

It is not clear at which point in history the processing of the Hawajeh started. The elder women interviewed stated that they have inherited the knowledge of collecting and processing wild herbs for this purpose from their mothers, who themselves inherited it from their own mothers, and they consider it as a family legacy. They also mentioned that each generation added new herbs to the families mix to give it their own touch.

The tradition of making this product is deeply rooted in the heritage of the area and encompasses its wide biodiversity. Collecting more than 20 wild herbs and plants and their flowers is not an easy task and requires a lot of knowledge to be able to distinguish those plants. These herbs are found in different geographies and different climates, some are harvested in mountains, near water streams, in the valley or plains.

Collecting these herbs takes time and effort with taking several trips to be able to find the special herbs used in family recipes. Despite this difficulty, elder women in the area stated that they look forward to the season to collect the herbs, as it is a family activity when they gather in spring and go out to enjoy the beauty of nature while safeguarding a tradition that they inherited from their families.

Nowadays this knowledge is restricted to the elder women in the villages, those that possess the artisanal knowhow and the knowledge of wild herbs, a knowledge that is declining dramatically and in danger of disappearing. Despite its high relevance to the food heritage and culture, most of the younger generation are not interested in learning and keeping this knowledge.

The main components of hwajeh in Jordan are white sweet clover which is known as handagog in Arabic which grows wildly especially around Al-Salt city. It also contains green fenugreek which is known as helbeh in Arabic, they are mixed with ground curcuma or the local variety of safflower.

Al-Balqa has its own hwajeh which contains mostly green leaves, yellow and white flowers. The following are the main herbs mentioned by the women interviewed:

White Sweet Clover Flowers (Handagog) حندقوق,

Bay leaves (Waraq Ghar) ورق غار,

Wild Sage (Meramieh) ميرمية برية,

Dominica Sage (Khwaikh) خويخة,

Wild Rosemary (Ikleel Al-jabal) إكليل الجبل,

Bongardia flower (U’urf Al-Deek) عرف الديك,

Calicotome Leaves and Flower (Al-Qindeel) القنديل,

Hawthorn (AlNabag) النبق,

Common Chrysanthemum (Bisbas) بسباس,

Wild Fennel Flowers, (Shomer Bari) شومر بري,

Wild Coriander Leaves and Flower (Kozbarah Baryeh)كزبرة برية,

Silene Crassipes Flowers and Leaves (Smeanneh) سمينًة,

Green Fenugreek (Helbeh Khadra)حلبة خضراء,

Syrian Rue (Faejel)فيجل,

Indian Melitot (Mehalbeh)محيلبة,

Cress (Rashaad) رشاد,

Caraway (Karawya or Shwaimreh) شويمرة,

Pink Rockrose (Al-Lobaid) اللبيد,

Alyssum (Draihmeh) دريهمة,

Long-Beaked Strok’s Bill (Ibret Al-A’ajooz) إبرة العجوز,

Vitex (Shjairet Mariam) شجيرة مريم.

The fresh herbs and plants are collected throughout spring starting March until the end of May and then dried to be used for the rest of the year.

Once collected, the herbs are cleaned, dried completely, then grinded finely and mixed with ground turmeric or safflower. The mix alone is a light green bitter spice that has a distinctive strong smell. When used for cooking it gives a strong earthy flavour and adds a distinctive smell rendering the dishes their traditional flavour. The process of production is manual as it is traditionally done by women of household.

Processors sell this product directly to consumers from their own homes, others sell to local small spice shops, many locals produce their own hwajeh for self-consumption.

As they are processed and used by the local community, there is no official data on the quantity produced. Locals stated that the quantity they produce to sell to their community vary from year to year (one producer said on average 40 to 50 Kg are produced yearly).

In Al-Balqa’, hawajeh is used as spice to flavour many traditional dishes and it is considered as essential for flavouring for the Jordanian national dish Mansaf.

It is also an essential ingredient in the processing of the local ghee/Samneh Balqawieh, that Al-Balqa’ is famous for. What makes the Samneh Balqawieh special is the wild herb mix hwajeh, that gives to it its distinctive flavour.

Hawajeh is not used by cooks and restaurants, as a spice is normally restricted to households that still process their own herb mix or buy it from producers nearby.

Traditionally, goat or sheep butter is clarified in copper pots with the addition of Hwajeh. Once melted, the milk separates from the fat, which is collected and slowly poured into a new pot, leaving the milk and Hwajeh aside. Then, the fat is boiled for ten minutes with a small amount of Jareesheh (ground wheat, i.e. bulgur) to help eliminate excess liquid: this process is called Tagsheed.

The Samneh is ready when the Jareesheh is fully cooked, at which point it is left to rest for another ten minutes until the grain settles to the bottom of the pot. Finally, the product is poured into a goatskin bag, called an Akkeh, and stored for the rest of the year. Today, many processors use glass containers instead of leather containers for storage and sale. The ghee must be kept out of direct sunlight to avoid moisture build-up inside the jar and the subsequent deterioration of the product.

Sealed containers do not need to be refrigerated, while opened containers can be stored for up to three months in the pantry, always away from direct sunlight, and up to a year in the refrigerator. The cold hardens the ghee, but if brought back to room temperature it will soften again. When prepared, Smaneh is greenish-yellow in colour and has a strong, earthy smell and taste characteristic of Hwajeh. Samneh Balqawieh has a higher density than those produced elsewhere due to a longer boiling time.

Ghee is commonly used in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and South-East Asia, as well as in traditional medicine and religious rituals; today, it has become popular worldwide as an additive and flavour enhancer in various dishes and also as butter for baked goods.

Samneh Balqawieh is the most widely used fat in the preparation of most traditional Jordanian dishes and desserts due to its flavour and high resistance to high temperatures. It is used to flavour rice, for cooking meat, in the preparation of desserts or simply as a condiment. It is indispensable in the preparation of mansaf, the main dish of Bedouin cuisine, made with rice, lamb meat cooked in jameed (a kind of dried and fermented yoghurt) and served with flat, very thin and round bread called shrak.

It is also used to cook rashoof, made with lentils, jameed and jareeseh, or fateereh, made with jameed, chickpeas, olive oil and thin bread called khubz (pita). Samneh Baladieh is also mixed and stored with carob molasses in a goatskin container and as breakfast or dessert with traditional bread.

In the past, Samneh Balqawieh was produced by women and was a staple food used for breakfast, lunch and dinner in almost every household. Even today, ghee is one of the main dairy products, considered the second most important staple food after wheat for the Jordanian population, and some villagers have their own flocks of sheep or goats, or both, so they process Balqa Ghee for personal consumption, to sell to relatives and neighbours, or to the central dairy market in Salt, the capital of Balqa.

However, its production remains confined to the most remote villages and the artisanal recipe is in danger of being lost. The causes are linked to urbanisation and the presence on the market of a similar product made industrially and using the milk of animals that have not grazed freely on wild herbs. Moreover, the same wild herbs needed to flavour Samneh Balqawieh are becoming increasingly rare due to climate change, overgrazing and numerous fires, often arson.

Nowadays, some restaurants specialising in traditional Jordanian dishes use Samneh Balqawieh in their dishes to maintain the authenticity of the dish and source from small traditional producers.

To create My superlative version of samneh, you need to start – of course – with proper clarified butter, aka ghee. You can use cow milk butter for a more mild flavor or try goat or sheep milk butter for more authenticity and a more pronounced flavor – the choice is yours. To make proper Jordanian samneh outside of the region is virtually impossible, as even in that country, many of these are extremely rare herbs and spices that need to foraged in the wild. That said, My version is as close to authentic as humanly possible, for the road to Iblis is indeed paved with compromise! It turns out Ethiopia has analogues to many of the Jordanian wild herbs and spices and I have ingeniously substituted them where needed!

For the more unusual dried herbs, you will need bay leaf powder (easily purchased on Amazon here), Ramp leaves (a wild allium that combines the flavors of garlic and leek, and they are fortuitously just coming into season NOW for a brief one month period – buy them fresh here in season or dried here), dried chrysanthemum flowers that are My substitute for dried clover (buy it here), and wild za’atar leaves (NOTE: this is NOT the za’atar spice blend you normally see in the store, but rather a wild thyme that you can properly purchase from here).

For spicing, I call for wild Ethiopian turmeric (earthier than the cultivated version) that is bought from Brundo, (another Oakland CA institution) from here, wild nigella seed (buy it also from Brundo here), Aleppo chili flakes (buy it here), Middle Eastern dried lime powder known as loomi (buy it here), wild Mastic granules from the Greek island of Chios from here, Ethiopian wild fenugreek from here, and fennel pollen from here. The remaining herbs and spices are easily found in your local grocery store.

My Citizens – this is an heirloom Middle Eastern recipe of the highest renown (especially as both its purview and imprimatur are vouchsafed solely via My own Self!) and I have every confidence you will find it of great versatility, exceptional flavor and a source of boundless creativity throughout your entire cooking regimen!

Battle on – the Generalissimo

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