kunāfah (Arabic: كنافة),künefe is a very fine vermicelli-like pastry used to make sweet pastries and desserts. It is sometimes known as shredded phyllo.
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Origin
Kunafah is of Fatimid origin.[1] Kunafah has long been present in Egypt[2][3] and the Levant[citation needed]. It has also been a staple of the cuisines of the former Ottoman empire in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.
Preparation
Kunafah is made by drizzling a row of thin streams of flour-and-water batter onto a turning hot plate, so they dry into long threads resembling shredded wheat. The threads are then collected into skeins.[4]
Kunafah dough comes in three types:
- khishnah (Arabic خشنه) "rough", consisting of kadaif pastry, which looks like long thin noodle threads.
- na'ama (Arabic ناعمة) "fine", consisting of small pieces of semolina clustered together.
- mhayara (ِِArabic محيرة) a mixture of both khishnah and na'ama.
The pastry is heated with some butter, margarine or palm oil for a while and then spread with soft cheese (see Nabulsi cheese) and more pastry; or the khishnah kunafah is rolled around the cheese. A thick syrup, consisting of sugar, water and a couple of drops of rose water, is poured on the pastry during the final minutes of cooking. Often the top layer of kadaif pastry is colored using orange food coloring. Crushed pistachios are typically sprinkled on top as a garnish.
In Egypt, the filling is mainly composed of either crushed nuts mixed with powdered sugar and cinnamon, or of sweetened cream cheese.
In Turkey, only kadayif pastry (shredded pastry; called "wire kadayif") is used for making künefe. Kadayif is not rolled around the cheese. Cheese is put in between two layers of wire kadayif. It is cooked in small copper plates, served very hot in syrup with clotted cream kaymak and pistachios or walnuts.
The city of Nablus is especially renowned for kunafah.[5] The kunafah of Nablus is filled with Nabulsi cheese and plays a central role in Palestinian cuisine.
Other variants
Ka'ket Kanafeh
Popular across the Levant and Turkey, where it can be eaten for breakfast or even for dinner as a main meal, but primarily as a dessert. Eaten as a layered treat or helwah, it may also be placed in a special bread and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It is traditionally served alongside or drenched in a thick, sugar-based, honey-based, or glucose-based syrup called qattar or attar.
Kadaif
The threads are used to make pastries of various forms (tubes or nests), often with a filling of chopped nuts, like that used for baklava. A kadaif dessert is made by layering a mat of kadaif pastry, a filling of chopped nuts, then another mat of pastry. The pastries or dessert are painted with melted butter, baked until golden brown, then drenched in sugar or honey syrup. Kadaif is sometimes used, in fusion cuisine, to make savory pastries.[6]
World records
The largest plate of Kunafah was made in Nablus[7]. Palestinians made the largest kunafah in an attempt to get into the book of Guinness World Records. The plate of the Palestinian delicacy measured 75 meters in length and two meters in width with a weight of 1,350 kilogram.
See also
- Phyllo
- Arab cuisine
- Egyptian cuisine
- Levantine cuisine
- Palestinian cuisine
- Turkish cuisine
- Qatayef, the same word as kataifi, but a quite different preparation
- Ekmek kataif, a sort of Turkish bread custard
- Armenian cuisine
- Assyrian cuisine
- Iraqi cuisine
References
- ^ The Ramadan Experience in Egypt
- ^ Sadat, Jehan (2002). A Woman of Egypt. Simon & Schuster. p. 48.
- ^ Abu-Zahra, Nadia (2000). The pure and powerful. Ithaca press. p. 290.
- ^ How kataifi is made.
- ^ Cuisine Institute for Middle East Understanding.
- ^ Prawns Kataifi
- ^ http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/2009/07/20/RTV1348509/
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