The Hirshon ULTIMATE Passover Saltah – Yemenite Lamb Stew and Soft Matzo – سلتة

My superlative Citizenry – please allow this old Jew to wish those of My Tribe a “Chag Pesach Sameach” – a Happy Passover (Pesach (pay-sahch)! Yes, this sundown is the start of day 1 of the seven days of one of our most important holidays – and I spent days wracking My brain to decide what recipe was apropos. I’ve done several Pesach-oriented recipes over the years (see them all on the blog at this link!) In My infinite wisdom, I decided to focus on the OLDEST group of Jews in the world – those who emigrated from Yemen and THEIR favorite Pesach meal – the stew known as saltah!

Saltah is a hearty stew that is Yemen’s undisputed national dish – Yemen is a country of amazing antiquity (it was in fact the original kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, BTW!) and is possessed of an extraordinarily delicious cuisine. Sadly, Yemenite cuisine is rarely known outside its home country, except in Israel (which became the home for the entire Yemenite Jewish community in a fascinating secret evacuation in 1949 called Operation Magic Carpet).

Operation Magic Carpet is actually the nickname for Operation ‘On Wings of Eagles’ (Hebrew: כנפי נשרים, Kanfei Nesharim), which between June 1949 and September 1950 brought 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel. During the course of the classified operation, the overwhelming majority of Yemenite Jews – 47,000 from Yemen, 1,500 from Aden, as well as 500 from Djibouti and Eritrea and some 2,000 Jews from Saudi Arabia – were airlifted to Israel.

Yemenite Jews now make up an important part of the country’s demographic and their cuisine is beloved by virtually all Israelis of all nationalities. A proud Jewish community existed in Yemen for thousands of years, until the 20th century when pogroms, persecution and discrimination forced the Jewish population to flee Yemen en masse.

As of 2022, Levi Marhabi is the last Jew in Yemen.

Yemenite Jews, also known as Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from Hebrew: יהודי תימן, romanized: Yehude Teman; Arabic: اليهود اليمنيون), are those Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of the country’s Jewish population immigrated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. After several waves of persecution, the vast majority of Yemenite Jews now live in Israel, while smaller communities live in the United States and elsewhere.

Yemenite Jews observe a unique religious tradition that distinguishes them from Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, and other Jewish groups. They have been described as “the most Jewish of all Jews” and “the ones who have preserved the Hebrew language the best”. Yemenite Jews are considered Mizrahi or “Eastern” Jews, though they differ from other Mizrahis, who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to Sephardic law and customs.

Records referring to Judaism in Yemen started to appear during the rule of the Himyarite Kingdom, which was established in Yemen in 110 BCE. Various inscriptions in the Ancient South Arabian script in the 2nd century CE refer to the construction of synagogues approved by Himyarite kings. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 CE, there was significant Jewish emigration from Roman Judea to Yemen, which was then famous in the Greco-Roman world for its prosperous trade, particularly in spices.

By 380 CE, Himyarite religious practices had undergone fundamental changes. The inscriptions were no longer addressed to Almaqah or Attar but to a single deity called Rahmanan. Debate among scholars continues as to whether the Himyarite monotheism was influenced by Judaism or Christianity. Jews became especially numerous and powerful in the southern part of Arabia, a rich and fertile land of incense and spices and a way station on the incense trade route and the trade routes to Africa, India, and East Asia. The Yemeni tribes did not oppose the Jewish presence in their country.

In 390 CE, the Himyarite king Abu Karib led a military campaign northwards and fought the Jews of Yathrib. When Abu Karib fell ill, two local Jewish scholars named Kaab and Assad took the opportunity to travel to his camp, where they treated him and persuaded him to lift the siege. The scholars also inspired in the king an interest in Judaism, and he converted in 390, persuading his army to do likewise. With this, the Himyarite kingdom, “the dominant power on the Arabian peninsula”, was converted to Judaism.

In Yemen, several inscriptions dating back to the 4th and 5th centuries CE have been found in Hebrew and Sabaean praising the ruling house in Jewish terms for “helping and empowering the People of Israel”. The Christian missionary Theophilos the Indian, who came to Yemen in the mid-fourth century, complained that he had found great numbers of Jews.

There are numerous accounts and traditions concerning the arrival of Jews in various regions in Southern Arabia. One tradition suggests that King Solomon sent Jewish merchant marines to Yemen to prospect for gold and silver with which to adorn his Temple in Jerusalem. In 1881, the French vice consulate in Yemen wrote to the leaders of the Alliance (the Alliance Israelite Universelle) in France, that he read in a book by the Arab historian Abu-Alfada that the Jews of Yemen settled in the area in 1451 BCE.

Another legend says that Yemeni tribes converted to Judaism after the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon. The Sanaite Jews have a tradition that their ancestors settled in Yemen 42 years before the destruction of the First Temple. It is said that under the prophet Jeremiah some 75,000 Jews, including priests and Levites, traveled to Yemen.

Another legend states when Ezra commanded the Jews to return to Jerusalem they disobeyed, whereupon he pronounced a ban upon them. According to this legend, as a punishment for this hasty action, Ezra was denied burial in Israel. As a result of this local tradition, which cannot be validated historically, it is said that no Jew of Yemen gives the name of Ezra to a child, although all other Biblical appellatives are used. While Jewish boys learned Hebrew from the age of 3, it was used primarily as a liturgical and scholarly language. In daily life, Yemenite Jews spoke regional Judeo-Arabic.

The Yemenite Jews claim that Ezra cursed them to be a poor people for not heeding his call. This seems to have come true in the eyes of some Yemenites, as Yemen is extremely poor. However, some Yemenite sages in Israel today emphatically reject this story as myth, if not outright blasphemy. Due to Yemenite Jewry’s cultural affiliation with Babylon, historian Yehuda Ratzaby opines that the Jews of Yemen migrated to Yemen from places in Babylonia. According to local legends, the kingdom’s aristocracy converted to Judaism in the 6th century CE.

In the Middle Ages, as “People of the Book”, Jews were assured freedom of religion in exchange for payment of the jizya or poll tax, which was imposed on non-Muslim monotheists. Feudal overlords imposed this annual tax upon Jews, which, under Islamic law, was to ensure their status as protected persons of the state. This tax (tribute) was assessed against every male thirteen years and older and its remittance varied between the wealthy and the poor.

Active persecution of Jews did not gain full force until a Zaydi clan seized power from the more tolerant Sunni Muslims, early in the 10th century. The legal status of Jews in Yemen started to deteriorate around the time the Tahirids took Sana’a from Zaidis, mainly because of new discrimination established by the Muslim rulers. Such laws were not included in Zaidi legal writings till comparatively late with Kitab al-Azhar of al-Mahdi Ahmad bin Yahya in the first half of the 15th century. This also led to deterioration of the economic and social situation of Jews.

Jewish intellectuals wrote in both Hebrew and Arabic and engaged in the same literary endeavours as the Muslim majority. According to a late-9th-century document, the first Zaydi imam al-Hadi ila’l-Haqq Yahya had imposed limitations and a special tax on land held by Jews and Christians of Najran. In the mid-11th century, Jews from several communities in the Yemen highlands, including Sanaʿa, appear to have been attracted to the Sulayhids’ capital of Dhu Jibla.

The city was founded by Abdullah bin Muhammad al-Sulaihi in the mid-11th century, and according to Tarikh al-Yamman of the famed Yemenite author Umara al-Yamani (1121–74), was named after a Jewish pottery merchant. During the 12th century, Aden was first ruled by the Fatimid Caliphate and then the Ayyubids. The city formed a great emporium on the sea route to India. Documents of the Cairo Geniza about Aden reflect a thriving Jewish community led by the prominent Bundar family.

Abu Ali Hasan ibn Bundar served as the head of the Jewish communities in Yemen as well as a representative of the merchants in Aden. His son Madmun was the central figure in Yemenite Jewry during the flourishing of trade with India. The Bundar family produced some celebrated negidim who exerted authority over the Jews of Yemen as well as Jewish merchants in India and Ceylon. The community developed communal and spiritual connections in addition to business and family ties with other Jewish communities in the Islamic world, funding Jewish centers in Iraq, Palestine, and Egypt.

Yemenite Jewish music is an amazing auditory experience, haunting with melodies so ancient they go back THOUSANDS of years – I imagine My own ancestors singing and dancing in a similar fashion during the Exodus from Egypt! Here is a long but inspiring video on the topic:

The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive – Yemen Music of the Yemenite Jews (English)

Yemenite Jews also have a VERY different methodology when it comes to celebrating Pesach compared to Eastern European and Spanish Yids (Jew in Yiddish) – details may be found in a story here as well as here. Unlike their European cousins, Yemenite matzo is NOT hard and dry like the ancient, desiccated squares of cardboard supposedly preserved from our Egyptian exile – it is instead soft, much like a pita bread and FAR more tasty than the usual stale dreck (Yiddish for garbage) inflicted on us every Passover!

Here is a great video on Facebook showcasing how soft matzo is made!

I cribbed a recipe for this almost lost soft matzo from the unmatched David Regev, if you choose to make it!

Now – for the lamb stew itself!

An excellent discussion of the etymology of this dish – considered the national dish of Yemen, by the way! – is found on yemenkitchen.wordpress.com in this lightly-edited excerpt:

The word Saltah has no specific origin in Arabic. Saltah, originally is a derived word from the original “Salatah” سلطة, which means “combination of vegetables, internationally known as salad. The term Salatah came with the Turkish troops upon their long trials to invade Yemen. Saltaah, however is a combination of vegetables, boiled in a stew and topped with Hilba (mix of Fenugreek seeds and grounded green herbs – zhug). It’s eaten using bread, and is always served in a stone dish. Somehow, over time, the term changed from Salataah to Saltaah and was used specifically for this meal.

Stone Dish مقلى

If you are out of Yemen, it might be difficult to find a stone ware (Maklaa-مقلى) like the ones made in Yemen.You might be able to find Korean bowls in Asian grocery stores that are similar to them. It is very common in Far East cultures to cook with stone dishes as well.

Arousingappetities.com has this to say on the Turkish theory around the origin of this dish:

One of the two prevailing theories regarding the origin of our mysterious stew coincides with the history of the Ottoman Empire and their two forays into Yemen. While the Ottomans expanded rapidly throughout its 600 year history across Middle East and Eurasia, why did they bother with Yemen? After all, Yemen and Somalia would ultimately be the furthest and most remote outposts of the Empire.

Perched at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen enjoys borders on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. At this very significant corner of the world, these waters were essential to the critical trade route between Europe and India when the Ottoman Empire was at its peak. If the Ottomans expected to compete with the East India Company – the dominant trading force of the 16th century – they had to control Yemen.

You see, outpost or not, the Ottoman desire for this Yemeni outpost was for very shrewd geopolitical reasons.

So the Ottoman Empire needed Yemen… but the Yemeni people didn’t need the Ottomans. Ottoman forces first arrived in the 1500s but were expelled less than 100 years later. They returned in the 1800s, but once again the Yemenis revolted and sent the Ottoman Empire packing. However, on these ill-fated attempts to subdue the spirited Yemeni people, the Ottomans left behind a very critical artifact: the first recipe for saltah!

While the Yemeni people weren’t keen for their would-be Ottoman occupiers, they were remarkably quick to adapt this remnant Ottoman stew. Those who believe this “Turkish theory” maintain that the stew was originally made as a creative way to dress up leftovers, which is a magnificent thought (or should we say, after thought).

Since the origin of saltah was almost assuredly a way to share charity with the poor using whatever leftovers were on-hand, there is no standard recipe for the stew – some versions use beef, others lamb, a few use chicken – I prefer lamb. I have also made my saltah far richer and more celebratory, as the Yemenite Jews always do when they make this dish for Passover. It is in fact more a recipe blueprint than a recipe itself – it combines two famous Yemenite condiments.

These are the fiery zhug herb paste and hilbeh, a froth of ground fenugreek served as garnishes in addition to the meat, vegetables and soft matzo served with saltah on Pesach!

Please try and use my unmatched zhug recipe, as exemplified here (it was quite literally one of the first recipes I ever created for the blog almost ten years ago!) – you should also try and use my superlative Yemenite hawaij spice blend for the ultimate in flavor – the recipe for it may be found here. There is a more complex hilbeh recipe on that post, but please use the very simple one I’ve provided – it works better in this particular saltah recipe.

Black sesame oil is the classic fat used in saltah – you can buy an excellent version from here (please don’t use Asian sesame oil, the flavor profile is totally wrong!). I use Knorr Aromat seasoning to add umami and salt to the saltah in place of plain salt, as I prefer its flavor in this recipe – buy it from here. To add more color to the saltah (it should be like a thick soup or a thin stew in consistency) I use Kitchen Bouquet browning – buy it from here. Please do try and serve these in dark, stoneware bowls as the Yemeni Jews do – this is an excellent substitute available on Amazon!

Citizens – it is a sad Pesach indeed given that so many of the Israeli hostages (infants and elderly alike) are still being held as hostages in Gaza – all civilized men and women pray for their safe return and a swift and final end to the terrorists that are Hamas during this Pesach. Enjoy this saltah, but NEVER FORGET…

…never forget.

Battle on – the Generalissimo

The Hirshon ULTIMATE Passover Saltah – Yemenite Lamb Stew and Soft Matzo – سلتة

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• Author: The Generalissimo

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Ingredients

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• For Zhug:
• use the Hirshon Zhug recipe
• ***
• For Saltah (the stew):
• 1 Tbsp. black sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 large heirloom tomatoes, one diced and one grated
• 1 Yukon Gold potato, peeled and finely-diced
• ½ Anaheim green chili pepper, chopped
• 2 Tbsp. Hirshon Hawaij seasoning blend
• ½ tsp. Knorr Aromat seasoning (TFD change, original was kosher salt)
• 1 lb. leg of lamb cubes
• 5 cups water or chicken stock (water is traditional, TFD prefers the stock for added richness)
• Kitchen Bouquet for color and flavor, to taste
• ***
• For Hilbeh:
• Water
• 2 tsp. ground fenugreek
• 2 Tbsp. Zhug​
• ***
• For Yemenite Soft Matzo:
• 1 lb. (454 g) flour of the Passover variety
• ~1 US cup (237 ml) water, cool or chilled
• 1 Tbsp. (15 cc) kosher salt

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Instructions

1. Follow directions and make Hirshon zhug. Zhug can be served immediately or stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for several weeks.
2. Make Soft Matzo: Take a cast iron skillet or griddle, heat it up so that it reaches its maximum temperature by the time the dough is ready to be baked. You want it SCREAMING HOT.
3. Fill your bowl or stand mixer with the flour and salt. Starting with ½ cup water, slowly pour as you combine it with the flour. Stop adding water once the ingredients are fully integrated and form one complete ball of dough that is soft but neither sticky nor dry.
4. If it’s too sticky, add a little bit of flour. If it’s too dry, spray a little bit of water. The amount of water will also depend on other factors, such as flour quality and humidity.
5. Kneader: Knead the dough for at least 10 minutes.
6. Break off manageable chunks of the dough, about ⅛–⅙ of the complete mass, and give to every shaper. If there is dough left, continue to knead the it during the following steps.
7. Shaper(s): Shape the dough into a flat thin circle, either by hand or with a rolling pin. Make it thin, as if you were preparing a pizza. Thinness will ensure that the dough bakes thoroughly and quickly while retaining pliability.
8. Place the dough circles into the heated pan that you have chosen. Monitor the dough and cook each side until a few brown spots appear, about 1–2 minutes per side, but check frequently. Air bubbles are normal. (For a skillet or griddle, the process is similar to making a roti or tortilla.)
9. Cool flatbreads inside a folded tea towel. If there is dough left, repeat previous steps. Wash and dry all doughy surfaces (bowl, surface, and pin). Bag and store flatbreads in a cool environment. Freeze if you’re not eating them within a couple of days.
10. Make Saltah: Place dutch oven on medium heat and sauté garlic, onion, tomato, potato and fresh Anaheim pepper in oil until garlic browns and onion is translucent.
11. Add hawaij as well as Aromat and stir. Add lamb to onion mixture. Brown the meat for 5 minutes.
12. Add water and Kitchen Bouquet to taste to the mixture and bring to a boil. Then cover, reducing heat to a low simmer.
13. Cook stew for 1 – 2 hours, or until meat is tender and breaks apart
14. Remove from heat and break the meat apart with a fork to get smaller shreds. The consistency of the broth should be similar to a slightly thick soup; if the broth is too thick, you may add extra water. If it’s not thick enough, turn heat to medium and reduce.
15. Make hilbeh while meat is cooking:
16. Place ground fenugreek in a small bowl of water and let sit for at least one hour. Drain water.
17. Whip the fenugreek by hand or using a mixer. Whip until the color has changed from brown to white and the bitter taste is gone. This should take about 10 minutes beating by hand. Add prepared zhug to the fenugreek and whip in. Add more or less depending on how spicy you’d like it.
18. To serve: Add stew to bowls, add a few dollops of whipped hilbeh, and serve hot with some extra zhug on the side and a piece of the fresh soft matzo.