That Translator Can Cook: Kunafeh

A Palestinian dessert: sweet cheese or clotted cream topped with a vermicelli or fine semolina crust and syrup. It’s typically garnished with crushed pistachios.

Image Source: Tareekaa

 I love kunafeh, but I’m very picky about it: it can’t have too much cheese or syrup, and I prefer the kind made with fine semolina (kunafeh naimeh). And I just can’t enjoy kunafeh asabe’ or ‘finger’ kunafeh (shown to the right). It is so delicious, I really recommend you try it, useless you have allergy (i.e. milk), where you can’t take a pill or substitute an ingredient.

There are three main types of kunafeh:

Image Source: Nablusi Sweets

1. kunafeh naimeh (lit. ‘smooth’ kunafeh): the topping is made from fine semolina

2. kunafeh khishneh (lit. ‘rough’ kunafeh): the crust is made from vermicelli.

3. kunafeh asabe’ (lit. ‘finger’ kunafeh): instead of the kunafeh being flat, it is rolled up and chopped into finger-length pieces. This kind usually uses vermicelli for the outside.

Image Source: Basmaty

Of course, there are regional variants that use different types of cheese or substitute the cheese with qishta (like clotted cream), but the three types above are the standard types.

When and where kunafeh originated: it is agreed that it was invented either in the 10th century or the 15th century, but some say it originated in Egypt or the Umayyad Empire and others say it originated in Nablus, Palestine. No matter where it originated, today, the city of Nablus is world-famous for its kunafeh. Nablus holds the Guiness World Record for the largest kunafeh ever made: “170 bakers gathered in 2009 to create one that was a whopping 75 meters long and two meters wide. The giant pastry used 300 kilograms of sugar, 35 kilograms of pistachios and 600 kilograms of cheese.” If you’re ever in Palestine (the West Bank), you have to visit Nablus and eat kunafeh there.

Recently, there has been debate because of people experimenting with kunafeh or making kunafeh with different flavors (i.e. Nutella or ice cream instead of cheese/qishta), which brings up the hot topic of food authenticity. In the episode “Kitchen Talk” on BULAQ (a podcast), they had a good conversation about food and identity, authenticity, and appropriation-concerning hummus, not kunafeh. One person wondered why (White) people make “hummus” using different beans/other ingredients (and some can be really disgusting, in my opinion) and yet still call the dish “hummus” instead of “_________ bean dip.” Is this the same issue? Or does the debate have something to do with sumud (remaining steadfast in the face of occupation)? Or is there a general dislike for Nutella?

Here is an amazing article dissecting this complex issue (in the United States), and this paragraph sums up Nick Iluzada’s fascinating analysis quite well:

“Like gender, race, and money, authenticity is a social construct — something that we’ve given a certain amount of power to as a society, but that is ultimately ours to define, or to give up on entirely. It doesn’t have to be the notch against which we measure cuisine, but for it not to be, other major shifts are still necessary. People of color and immigrants would need the space to experiment without their identities getting called into question. White chefs and diners would have to stop fetishizing immigrants just for their food. We’d have to accept that there may not actually be a battle between protecting tradition and valuing change, that these concepts could live side by side. We still have a long way to go toward centering chefs of color, undoing white assumptions about ‘ethnic’ cuisine, and valuing thoughtful innovation over the novelty of a white chef making a sushi burrito. Authenticity will probably always mean different things to different people. But maybe the next goal is recognizing every definition of the word.”

Here is how to make kunafeh naimeh-my favorite! (recipe and pictures belong to ⴅäℓäk)

Ingredients

For the Dough:

• 1 cup of coarse semolina

• 1 cup of fine semolina

• 3/4 cup of flour

• 2 tablespoons of starch

• 1/2 cup of butter, melted

• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

• 1 teaspoon of yeast

• 1-1/2 cups of milk

• 1 tablespoon of rosewater

For Greasing the Pan:

• 2 tablespoons of ghee, melted

For the Filling:

• 1/2 kilo of mozzarella cheese

For serving:

• Syrup

For the Garnish:

• Pistachios

Instructions

In a bowl, add the semolina, flour, starch, and butter; mix the ingredients with your fingertips and set them aside for an hour. After an hour has passed, add the baking powder, yeast, milk, and rosewater; knead until the dough sticks to your hand. Put the dough into a round cake pan or cookie sheet, cover it with parchment paper, and let it rest for a quarter of an hour.

Put the pan into a preheated oven [temperature wasn’t given] for 8 minutes until the dough is completely dry without changing color, then let it cool completely. Crumble the dough up and put it into a food processor until you get a fine dough like kunafeh dough.

Place the dough on a platter and smoosh it with your fingertips to preventing it from clumping together. Next, grease the pan with ghee and put the kunafeh dough on it. Press down on it firmly, then scatter the cheese on top of the dough, leaving some distance from the edges.

Cover the kunafeh and put it into the oven at the lowest temperature setting on the oven, and let it bake until you can see that the edges have started to turn brown. Take it out, flip it over onto a serving platter, and pour syrup on top. Decorate it however you want and serve. Bon appetit! ♥

Translators’ Discussion

1. The ingredient list had “liquid milk,” but that seemed redundant: “milk” is automatically assumed to be a liquid (in the U.S. at least) and powdered milk is explicitly stated as such. Is this not the same for everyone else?

2. In the first sentence, it literally says ‘mix the ingredients with your fingertips’ (تفرك المقادير برؤوس الاصابع); and my first version featured “hands” instead of “fingertips” because I thought ‘hands’ was more common. In the end, I decided to keep ‘fingertips’ because I thought that motions would be different (using your hands vs using your fingertips). What do you think? Am I overthinking this?

3. The original recipe said to use a “bread pan” (صنية خبز), but in the U.S., I think most of us would think of a loaf pan, which is not what is needed. Kunafeh requires a wide, flat pan, which is why I used ‘cookie sheet’ and ‘round cake pan.’ Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

4. The end of the second paragraph literally says “fine dough like kunafeh dough” (عجينة ناعمة مثل عجينة كنافه) and I didn’t know how to make that more understandable because I’m not really sure what it means, as I’ve never made kunafeh before. Can anyone who speaks Arabic and knows how to make kunafeh weigh in on this?

5. I used “the oven at the lowest temperature setting on the oven” for “الفرن على درجة حرارة هادئة "الفرن مشغل من الاسفل فقط". Would you say this is an accurate translation?