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Making Traditional K'nafeh

Making K'nafeh Syrup

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Amy Riolo
Author, Cooking Instructor, Food Writer, Culinary Consultant
http://www.amyriolo.com/  
 

Amy Riolo is an internationally recognized culinary expert specializing in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean culture and cuisine. As a cookbook author, lecturer, food historian, food writer, culinary consultant, and cooking instructor, Amy promotes her philosophy of cooking and living with both pleasure and health. Her first book, Arabian Delights; Recipes & Princely Entertaining Ideas from the Arabian Peninsula has received rave reviews (Capital Books). Her second book Nile Style; Egyptian Cuisine and Culture (Hippocrene Books) will be released in spring 2009. She is also completing The Mediterranean Diabetes Cookbook, (American Diabetes Association) which will be released in spring 2010.

Amy’s popular lectures range in topics and include everything from Middle Eastern business etiquette to the history of various cuisines. She has been an invited guest speaker for the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Welcome to Washington International, Montgomery College, Les Dames D’Escoffier, The Baltimore-Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee and the Mycological Association of Washington, DC. Amy also makes frequent appearances on numerous television and radio programs both in the United States and Egypt including Fox TV, Montgomery and Fairfax County TV, Nile TV and WHYY.           

Amy currently writes the “Culture and Cuisine” feature for the Baltimore- Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee. She has also written articles for Cooking Light Magazine, Azizah Magazine, and the Kulanu newsletter. A graduate of Cornell University, Amy has experience in vocational, recreational, and children’s instruction, as well as corporate team building and cultural/culinary events. Her knowledge of the Italian, French, Spanish, and Arabic languages has enabled her to interpret many cultures and cuisines with intimacy and ease. She regularly teaches cooking classes at Sur la Table in Arlington, Virginia, and for private organizations.

A successful culinary consultant, Amy enjoys developing menus, recipes, training seminars, and themes for corporations, restaurants, and hotels. Amy is often asked to work as a consultant for museums where she creates menus and décor which represent the theme of new collections. In addition, she works with curators to incorporate sensory components like scent, touch, and taste into the schedule of events, allowing museum patrons to fully experience each exhibit.

Amy is a member of The International Association of Culinary Professionals, Culinary Historians of Washington, Les Dames d’Escoffier, Slow Food DC, Welcome to Washington International (where she co-chairs the Gourmet Committee), Cornell Club of Washington, the Women’s National Book Association, and the Baltimore – Luxor – Alexandria Sister City Committee (Where she is the chairperson of the Baltimore Friends of the Alexandria Library). Amy is based in the Washington DC, area and maintains a home in Egypt. She is currently organizing culinary tours to both the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Making K'nafeh Syrup

 

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Pistachios

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K'nafeh

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Making K'nafeh Syrup

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sugar

Two large strips of orange peel

Juice of one small orange

2 cups of shelled unsalted pistachios

2 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of orange blossom water

4 sticks of unsalted butter

1 pound package of Kataifi, which has been thawed at room temperature for two hours

1 cup of water

Instructions

1. Add the sugar, orange juice, orange peel and water to a pot at medium heat. Stir and bring mixture to a boil and allow it to cook for a minute. Once the sugar has dissolved, allow it to simmer on low heat for 10-15 minutes.

 

2. Put the butter into a pan and cook on medium heat to melt. Skim the white milk solids off the top. Transfer the butter into a big bowl.

 

3. Place the Kataifi over the top of the bowl and break it up into little pieces and immerse it in the butter.

 

4. Put the pistachios into a food processor and add sugar and orange blossom water. Pulse until you get evenly ground pistachios.

 

5. Place half the K'nafeh in the bottom of a 9X13 pan and half will go on top. Layer the K'nafeh to cover the bottom of the pan.

 

6. Pour the pistachio filling in and place the other half of the K'nafeh on top. Press it down with your hands to make it even.

 

7. Cover the pan with tin foil and place a five pound weight on top. Put it in the refrigerator for an hour or overnight.

 

8. Take a knife and cut squares only about 3/4 of the way down. Bake it for abour an hour to an hour and 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

 

9. Pour the syrup on top and finish cutting the K'nafeh and plate and serve it.

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Transcripts

Amy Riolo: Hi, I am Amy Riolo, today we are making Pistachio K'nafeh and I am going to start by showing you how to make the sweet syrup for the K'nafeh. The first thing that we will need to add, is a cup and a half of sugar, then we will need to add the juice of an orange, a few pieces of orange peel, if you prefer you could use lemon and then we are going to add a cup of water and we are going to heat these on medium heat and we will stir and bring this mixture to a boil and this is just going to melt everything and to incorporate all of the ingredients easily. This is a wonderful simple syrup that you can use. You can keep it on hand and use it for drinks or for other sweets that you would like to pour it over. It's wonderful on pancakes and as I mentioned you can change it with other kinds of fruit or other kind of citrus. But I really like the fresh orange taste with the Baklava.

One of the things that I suggest to people, whenever they are making Baklava or any kind of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean dessert that uses a syrup, is that you can make the syrup in advance and cool it down and then keep it in your refrigerator for maybe up to a month and then you will have that on hand, so that whenever you are make the Baklava, all you have do is assemble it and not worry about the syrup.

It's always good to serve cold syrup on top of hot Baklava and that really allows the flavors to blend and it allows the texture of the Baklava to be the way it should be. So there is no problem in making it in advance. It's actually advisable and if you were to walk into a bakery in Greece or in anywhere in the Mediterranean or the Middle East, you will find a big-big large bin of this kind of syrup, just ready waiting and then whenever the sweets were being made, people could very quickly dip a ladle into it and pour it right over the top of the dessert that they are making.

So we are just going to allow this to cook this for a minute. We really want to get the mixture to come up to a boil and as soon as the sugar dissolves, that's about the same time that it comes up to a boil, as soon as that happens, we are going to turn it down to low and we are going to let it simmer. You don't want to stir once the mixture comes to a boil because if you do stir after that point, what will happen is the sugar will start to crystallize and then it will ruin your syrup.

So it's a very simple technique, but you just want to remember stop stirring once it boils and mine recipes are little bit heavy on the orange juice, sometimes people put a teaspoon in or a tablespoon and I have got the juice of an entire orange because I really like the juice flavor. I would rather for my syrup to be more citrussy and less sugary, but if you like more sugar and less citrus, you can always bring the quantity down a little bit and that will be fine and now we are certainly see some boiling around the edges of our pot, and as soon as that happen, we know we can stop stirring and what I am going to do is I am going to turn this fire down to low and we are just going to let it be for about 10 or 15 minutes. This is the way candid orange peel looks and this is the way your little orange peel are going to look when your syrup is ready. So if the orange peel don't look at this in your syrup, let it simmer for a little while longer, but if they do, you are ready, just take it off the fire and let it sit until you are ready with your Baklava.

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