Kunāfah

Kanafah (Arabic: كنافة‎‎ kunāfah, Turkish: künefe, Azerbaijani: ریشته ختایی riştə xətayi, Greek: κανταΐφι kadaïfi/kataïfi, Hebrew: כנאפה‎‎ knafeh), also spelled kunafeh or kunafah is a Middle Eastern cheese pastry soaked in sweet, sugar-based syrup, typical of the regions belonging to the former Ottoman Empire. It is a specialty of the Levant and adjoining areas of Egypt and Turkey.

Appetizing presentation

Main ingredients are dough in filaments, sugar, cheese, pistachio, rose water, kaymak (cream)

Kanafeh pastry comes in three types:

khishnah coarse (Arabic خشنه): crust made from long thin noodle threads

na'ama (Arabic ناعمة) (fine): semolina dough

kunafa with semolina

mhayara (Arabic محيرة) (mixed): a mixture of khishnah and na'ama

dough ready to spread

The pastry is heated in butter, margarine, palm oil, or traditionally semneh and then spread with soft white cheese, such as Nabulsi cheese, and topped with more pastry. In khishnah kanafeh the cheese is rolled in the pastry. A thick syrup of sugar, water, and a few drops of rose water or orange blossom water is poured on the pastry during the final minutes of cooking. Often the top layer of pastry shops is tinted with red food coloring (a modern shortcut, instead of baking it for long periods of time). Crushed pistachios are sprinkled on top as a garnish.

Knafeh in Nablus

Variation with kunafa

Kanafeh was first mentioned in the 10th century.

It is generally believed to have originated in the Palestinian city of Nablus hence the name Nabulsieh. Nablus is still renowned for its kanafeh, which consists of mild white cheese and shredded wheat surface, which is covered by sugar syrup. In the Levant, this variant of kanafeh is the most common. The largest plate of kanafeh was made in Nablus. in an attempt to win a Palestinian citation in the Guinness World Records. It measured 75×2 meters and weighed 1,350 kilograms.

Turkish künefe and Turkish tea (çay)

The Turkish variant of the pastry kanafeh is called künefe and the wire shreds are called tel kadayıf. A semi-soft cheese such as Urfa peyniri (cheese of Urfa, or Hatay peyniri, cheese of Hatay), made of raw milk, is used in the filling. In making the künefe, the kadayıf is not rolled around the cheese; instead, cheese is put in between two layers of wiry kadayıf. It is cooked in small copper plates, and then served very hot in syrup with clotted cream (kaymak) and topped with pistachios or walnuts. In the Turkish cuisine, there is also yassı kadayıf and ekmek kadayıfı, none of which is made of wirey shreds.

making of the dough wires

Riştə Xətayi

This type of Azerbaijani variant is prepared in Tabriz, Iran. «Riştə Xətayi» is called to mesh shreds that are cooked typically in Ramadan in the world's biggest covered Bazaar of Tabriz. It is made of chopped walnuts, cinnamon, ginger, powder of rose, sugar, water, rose water, olive oil.

Kadaif

In this variant, called also καταΐφι or κανταΐφι in Greek (kataïfi or kadaïfi), the threads are used to make pastries of various forms (tubes or nests), often with a filling of chopped nuts as in baklava.

A Bosnian style kadaif pastry is made by putting down a layer of wire kadaif, then a layer of a filling of chopped nuts, then another layer of wire kadaif. The pastries are painted with melted butter, baked until golden brown and then drenched in sugar or honey syrup.

The dessert is usually made with long, thin strands of shredded phyllo dough known as kataifi. In fact, the word, kunafa is used interchangeably to describe both the dessert and the dough. The dough is usually fried or baked with butter or oil until it is crisp. In some variations, the kunafa is made with rich, cake-like semolina dough instead.

Kunafa mabruma

The Abbasid Caliphate cooks during the 9^th century  made a “crepe-like” pastry called qata’if wrapped around almond cream and drizzled with honey. Still know today under the same name.

robin nest kunafa

By the 10th century, Middle Eastern cooks began to bake “thinly sliced … qata’if and tossed the shreds with honey,” perfected later by Nablus cooks to become the kunafa of today, much later was the qata’if batter poured “into thin lines onto a hot metal sheet.” to form the uncooked dough. 

This new method of cooking the dough became the norms for the kunafa we see today.

data collected from internet

Eid el Ghutas

Eid el Ghutas: Celebrated on 19 January, it supposedly marks the end of the Christmas season begun on the 7th of the same month, and commemorates the baptism of Christ. The word “ghutas” meaning total immersion, usually in water, also describes the act of baptism of Coptic babies whereby the body is totally immersed in the holy font.

Christ Baptism

Food served during this feast is invariably the same in most homes, though the origin of the traditional meal remains contested, but some interesting explanations challenge the imagination. The main dish is taro stew served with rice, followed by tangerines and knuckles of sugar cane to chew on, in lieu of dessert.

Taro / Colcas

Taro leaves, whose scientific name is Madumbes, but more relevantly to our present purpose, also called Colocasia Esculenta, and in Arabic Colcas, are said to derive their name from Mount Golgotha, aka Calvary. A name attributed to the mount for a variety of reasons, none especially definitive, but the etymology of the word remains the same: “the place for skulls”, since the skull of Adam according to one version is buried there, and to another because the place looks like one. Further on, through the Aramaic Gulgalta, the word mutated into what we now know as colocasia, and ol'as. Ol’as, in Arabic, also rhymes with rass, meaning head, in reference to the skulls with which the word is connected (it is also said that if you don’t eat ol’as on ghutas, you will wake up without a rass. And yet others will say you will wake up without knickers, which in Arabic also rhymes with rass).

Taro (Colcas)

1 kg taro, peeled and cubed

Dices Taro

Chicken or beef broth

4 garlic cloves, mashed

2 tbsp butter

1 bunch green coriander, chopped

1 bunch Swiss chard, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Wash taro well in running tap water.

Place taro in a pot and cover with broth. Bring to the boil then lower heat and simmer until tender.

In a skillet, sauté garlic until golden then add coriander and Swiss chard and sauté for 2 more minutes.

Pour onto taro, bring to the boil then remove from heat

Mount Golgotha

This said, the reason ol'as and sugar cane are eaten on the occasion of an immersion, or the celebration of the baptism of Christ differs in relation to the skepticism of each account. According to some, the head of the taro resembles a bare skull and hence the justification of celebrating what may have taken place on Mount Golgotha, and the crucifixion of Christ. With the sugar cane left unaccounted for, we get another justification: mainly that Colocasia (in which case, the name and shape are immaterial) is a root vegetable that grows in moist sites and wetland found next to Golgotha; a water retentive plant tolerant of water logging, a characteristic it shares with another crop in particular: the sugar cane.

Taro in Soup

Little more need be said to explain the cult of water immersion and the association with those two highly moisture oriented plants. A different account, however, more secular and sceptical, told by no less practicing Copts is that given the date of the feast and the time of month, taro being a very nutritive plant and sugar cane with its high glycemic index would provide an exemplary diet of high calories to meet the cold. The pragmatic view would also hold that tangerines are the fruit of the season, and would explain away a whole traditional meal in the stark light of the market place.

Variation on Taro

Folklore also has it that one of the Alexandrian “nawwa's” (storms) occurs around that time of year to wash, or possibly irrigate the colocasia even more, since it bears the name “ghutas” following the same theme. As for the tangerines, no more in season than say, oranges and bananas, are probably chosen because their peel lends itself easily to making little incisions, and so children can slit them at the top making them into tiny basket shapes where a candle will be placed and lit. That the basket is meant to evoke the infant Jesus, is only speculation, but remains a possibility to ponder, and a tradition to add color to a feast with which not too many non Copts are as familiar as with the Coptic Christmas, now a national holiday, though with a distinctly less traditional meal.

 

Jesus with St-John the Baptist 

 Information from the internet