Knafeh

Kenafeh in a pan

Kenafeh (Arabic: كنافة kanāfah), also spelled knafeh, kunafeh or kunafah, is a Middle Eastern sweet made of very fine vermicelli-like pastry. It is sometimes known as shredded phyllo.

Origin

Kenafeh and the closely-related qata'if is recorded in medieval Arab cookbooks from various regions, in particular Egypt and the Levant. Kenafeh has long been present in Egypt and the Levant. It has also been a staple of the cuisines of the former Ottoman empire in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Preparation

Turkish kanafeh (künefe).

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.

Kanafeh 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) "confused", 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 Kanafeh 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 kadayif pastry (shredded pastry; called "wire kadayif") is used for making künefe, and a semi-soft cheese such as mozzarella is used in the filling. 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.

Among Palestinians, the city of Nablus is especially renowned for kanafeh. The kanafeh of Nablus is filled with Nabulsi cheese and plays a central role in Palestinian cuisine.

In Lebanon, the filling usually consists of akkawi cheese or any other unsalted white cheese like mozzarella.

Other variants

Kanafeh

Ka'ket Kanafeh

This variant is 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

In this variant, 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.

World records

Main article: List of records of Palestine

File:Knafeh 2009.jpg

Knafeh in Nablus 2009

The largest plate of kanafeh was made in Nablus. Palestinians made the largest kanafeh 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 kilograms.

See also

• Phyllo
• Qatayef, the same word as kataifi, but a quite different preparation
• Ekmek kataif, a sort of Turkish bread custard