Knafeh


Knafeh is a traditional Arab dessert made with kadayif layered with cheese and soaked in a sweet, sugar-based syrup called attar. Knafeh is popular throughout the Arab world, especially in Egypt, and the Levant. Knafeh is often served on special occasions, holidays and celebrating the month of Ramadan. The most common variant of knafeh in Jordan and Palestine, Knafeh Nabulseyeh, originated in the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Etymology

borrowed the word knafeh from Levantine and Egyptian Arabic, and transliterates it as, and similar variations.
The ultimate origin of the word is debated. It may come from the Coptic Egyptian, a bread or cake. Or it may come from a Semitic root meaning "side" or "wing", and from the Arabic, "to flank or enclose". Early uses appear in One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk Tales.

History

A common story is that the knafeh was created to satisfy the hunger of caliphs during Ramadan. The story, which dates in writing as early as the 10th century, is variously said to have occurred in Fatimid Egypt or in the Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus, Syria, where Levantine dessert makers preparing it for Mu'awiya I.
File:Knafeh from.png|thumb|right|200px|Homemade Knafeh from Feast: Food of the Islamic World by Anissa Helou, page 444
Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's tenth century Arabic cookbook, , which documented many recipes from Abbasid courts, does not mention or describe knafeh. However, it does feature a chapter on qatayif, an Arabic pancake dumpling dessert that originated in the Fatamid Empire. The 13th century cookbook, , of unknown author, gives a number of recipes for knafeh, which it describes as a pancake dumpling thinner than qatayif prepared on a flat pan. Some of the knafeh recipes in the cookbook call for layering the thin pancake with fresh cheese, baking it, and topping it with honey and rose syrup.
Ibn al-Jazari gives an account of a 13th-century Mamluk period market inspector who rode through Damascus at night ensuring the quality of knafeh, qatayif, and other foods associated with Ramadan. Over time, new knafeh preparation methods were developed, including a technique of dripping thin batter onto a metal sheet from a perforated container, creating hair-like strings. A mid-15th century Ottoman Turkish translation of Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi's added several new contemporary knafeh recipes, though it does not specify where they originated from.
According to historian, cheese-filled knafeh does not appear in any historical records prior to the 19th century, Turkish and Arabic Damascene recipes from the 18th century always used different nuts as filling. An 1844 dictionary for Syrian and Egyptian Arabic by Swedish Orientalist mentions a knafeh made of string dough and qaymaq, a sort of cooked cream. Food historian Daniel Newman cites an 1885 cookbook published in Beirut as the earliest documented example of a cheese-filled variant. The 1885 Beirut cookbook Ustadh al-Tabbakhin by author provided 4 recipes for knafeh: cheese filled knafeh, burma knafeh, mafroukeh, where knafeh pastry is rubbed by hand to be softened, and knafeh basma, which is made with 2 layers of pastry.
The book "Comparative Encyclopedia of Aleppo" by Syrian author Khayr al-Din al-Asadi, completed in 1971 and published posthumously in 1981, described 10 different kinds of knafeh.

Common variants

Knafeh Nabulseyeh (Nablus, Palestine)

Knafeh has been described as a "Palestinian Institution." Knafeh Nabulseyeh is a popular version of knafeh originated in the Palestinian city of Nablus, hence the name Nabulseyeh. Nablus is still renowned in for its knafeh, which "is filled with the city’s trademark firm, white, salty nabulsi cheese" and covered with a sweet syrup called qatir, it has 1 layer of either rough or soft knafeh pastry atop the cheese, typically prepared upside down then flipped, with soft dough being more popular than kadayif for Nabulsi knafeh.
Today, knafeh Nabulseyeh is the most common variant of knafeh in Jordan and Palestine. As a result, academics have described Nablus as the modern-day knafeh capital.
Associations between Nablus and knafeh date back to at least 1950; :ar:عبد الوهاب محمد عزام|'s 1950 book noted that "Nablus is famous for its knafeh".

Knafeh Ghazawiya (Gaza Strip, Palestine)

Knafeh ''Ghazawiya is a Palestinian variant of knafeh'' unique to the Gaza Strip. It is made with a variety of Gazan nuts and spices, with "nutmeg and cinnamon replacing the cheese.", the pastry used is made from semolina and bulgur.

Künefe (Hatay, Turkey)

Künefe is a variant of knafeh believed to have originated in Hatay Province, Turkey. It is filled with a mozzarella-like local Hatay cheese and coated in "a syrup made of water, sugar and lemon juice." In 2012, the EU Commission approved Antakya Künefesi, a variant of both kadayif and künefe, as a Protected Geographical Indication. It also received a geographic indication by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, both geographic indications specify that Hatay kunefe is made with 2 separately heated layers of pastry around the cheese.

Dubai chocolate

is a chocolate bar with a kadayif and pistachio filling, It was first produced by Fix Dessert in Dubai, but versions are now sold worldwide. While originally inspired by knafeh and first sold under the name "Can't Get Knafeh Of It", the bar does not contain any cheese.

Sandwiched knafeh

In Lebanon, kaak knafeh is a popular street food, its made of a knafeh sandwiched in sesame-coated bread.
In Nablus, knafeh is sandwiched in pita bread and eaten for breakfast.

Knafeh madlouqa

Knafeh madlouqa is a Levantine dessert made of a layer of finely-shredded knafeh dough that is cooked in samneh and topped with qishta or kaymak. The knafeh pastry in the bottom layer is sometimes replaced with semolina.

Preparation

There are several types of knafeh pastry:
  • khishnah : a crust made from long thin noodle threads.
  • nāʿimah : a semolina dough.
  • muhayara : a mixture of khishnah and na'ama.
  • mabruma : a noodle pastry
The knafeh pastry is heated in butter, margarine, palm oil, or traditional semneh, spread with soft sweet cheese, such as Nabulsi cheese, and topped with additional pastry. In khishnah knafeh the cheese is rolled in the pastry. During the final minutes of cooking, thick sweet sugar syrup, water, and a few drops of rose water or orange blossom water are poured on the pastry. The top layer of pastry is sometimes tinted red or orange, and crushed pistachios are often sprinkled as a garnish.
Besides cheese, common fillings include nuts or cream, such as qishta which is used in othmalliyya.

Politics

Israel-Palestine

Today, knafeh is served throughout the Middle East, although it is "particularly associated with Nablus" and considered to be a "cultural touchstone for Palestinian identity".
Knafeh is popular in Israel, and it is prepared by many Israeli eateries and chefs. Some Palestinians have criticized the presentation of knafeh as an Israeli food without reference to its Arab origins, describing this as cultural appropriation.