Kanafeh
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Kanafeh, kunāfah (Arabic: كنافة), kadayıf and künefe (Turkish), kadaif (Albanian), kataifi, kadaifi (Greek κα(ν)ταΐφι), 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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[edit] Origin
Kanafeh has long been present in Anatolia, Egypt, and the Levant.[citation needed]
Kanafeh is of Fatimid origin[1].
Kanafeh is also found in the cuisines of the former Ottoman empire in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.
The city of Nablus is especially renowned for Kanafeh[2].
[edit] Preparation
Kanafeh 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.[3]
Kanafeh dough comes in three types:
- khishneh (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): which is a mixture of both khishneh and naa'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 khishneh 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.
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 pistachio/walnut.
Often the top layer of kadaif pastry is colored using orange food coloring. Crushed pistachios are typically sprinkled on top as a garnish.
[edit] Other variants
[edit] Kanafeh Nabulsiyye
The kanafeh of Nablus, filled with Nabulsi cheese, plays a central role in Palestinian cuisine and well-known throughout the Arab world.
[edit] 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 be also placed in a special bread and peppered 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".
[edit] 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.
Kataifi is sometimes used, in fusion cuisine, to make savory pastries.[4]
[edit] Etymology
From the Ottoman Turkish word قطائف [kadaif], plural of Arabic قطيفة [qatˁiːfah] 'velvet'. This word originally referred to a kind of crêpe which was later cut into strips resembling modern kadaif.
[edit] 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
[edit] References
- ^ The Ramadan Experience in Egypt
- ^ Cuisine Institute for Middle East Understanding.
- ^ How kataifi is made.
- ^ Prawns Kataifi
