Arabic & Levantine Pantry Guide
What is kunafa (knafeh)? Warm pastry with cheese or cream
Kunafa (also spelled knafeh, kanafeh or künefe) is a Middle Eastern dessert made from shredded kataifi pastry soaked in ghee, layered over stretchy sweet cheese or thick qishta cream and baked until golden. Served warm, it is drenched in blossom-scented sugar syrup and topped with pistachios.
Rough-shredded (khashneh) vs fine-crumb (naameh) kunafa
All kunafa begins with kataifi dough: a thin wheat batter spun through tiny nozzles onto a hot rotating griddle to form hair-thin pastry strands. In "kunafa khashneh" (coarse kunafa), those long strands are pulled apart by hand, tossed generously with melted samna (ghee) and pressed into a pan for a shatteringly crisp top and bottom. In "kunafa naameh" (fine kunafa, the hallmark of Nablus in Palestine), the pastry strands are blitzed with ghee into a fine, sand-like crumb that bakes into a smooth, tender crust.
Fillings: desalted cheese, clotted cream or pistachios
Levantine cheese kunafa is traditionally filled with white brined cheeses such as akkawi or nabulsi. Before assembly, the cheese is sliced and soaked in bowls of cold water for several hours, changing the water until every trace of salt is gone, so it melts into a sweet, stretchy layer in the oven. Across Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, "kunafa bil-qishta" is equally loved, sandwiching a thick layer of rich milk cream between two golden layers of shredded pastry.
