Knafeh with Chef Omar

Given how much we love food, it’s surprising that this is the first time we’ve featured a cooking video on Fi Kalam. Perhaps because I usually get too hungry and impatient to finish watching... Chef Omar’s cooking videos are different from most others I’ve seen though. The videos are fast-paced, funny, and keep me engaged. Chef Omar talks for most of the videos, sometimes sharing fun facts about the ingredients and recipe, and sometimes just chatting. As a language learner myself, this is part of what I like about the videos - I’m learning not just cooking vocabulary, but other words and phrases along the way.

Chef Omar’s videos are about 20 minutes on average, with some longer and shorter ones mixed in. He speaks very quickly and in the Syrian dialect. He cooks a variety of cuisines on his channel, but the video we’re going to dive into here is one about a popular Middle Eastern/Southwest Asian dish: knafeh!

Scroll down for a list of ingredients, vocabulary, and some English directions in case you get lost. We haven’t included measurements for the ingredients as amounts will differ depending on the size of your pan. Yalla let’s get cooking!

Ingredients / مكونات

كنافة
Knafeh
The fine, crispy threads on top of knafeh khishnah

قشطة
Cream
You can cook the ishta (cream) yourself or buy it at the store, just make sure the ishta you’re using is properly thick. It should have a texture similar to pudding. Liquid cream, like the type people add to American coffee, won’t work.

جبنة
Cheese
At around minute 8, Chef Omar goes over some examples of different cheeses that can be used for knafeh, depending on what country or region you’re in. There are many different suitable cheese options for the dish, (including fresh, drained mozzarella!), but the important thing is that it’s an unsalted, dense cheese (جبنة قاسية) without a hint of water (ولا نكشة ماء)

سكر
Sugar

سمنة
Ghee
Around minute 5, Chef Omar warns that you can’t substitute butter for ghee here because there is too much water in butter. However, if you don’t have ghee, you can melt the butter and keep it heating over a low flame for a while to reduce the water content. If the water doesn’t seem to be evaporating, you can toss in some bulgur to pull out more of the water. The result is clarified butter (سمنة صافية), which can be a substitute for ghee, as ghee is a type of clarified butter.

Steps / الشغلات

In this video, Chef Omar is making knafeh khishnah (كنافة خشنة), or rough knafeh, as opposed to knafeh nabulsi, which he says is much more complicated to make. He’s making the dish two different ways: in the oven (بالفرن) and in a frying pan ( بالمقلاية) on the stove, for those who don’t have an oven. You’ll hear him mention the differences between this knafeh and the nabulsi version a few times during the video, as well as an explanation of the difference between this knafeh and Turkish knafeh at minute 4:45.

1:07

Take out the quantity of  knafeh you want to use from the package and gently pull it apart, to separate the threads (فرد الكنافة), breaking up any clumps as you go. Chef Omar explains that he’s using knafeh that was made a couple days ago so the knafeh is a little dry (ناشفة). You don’t want to let knafeh dough sit out for too long - stale or crusty (يبسانة) knafeh won’t work. He sprays it with water (بيخبخها بالماء) as he goes to get it more hydrated (رطبة).

2:38

Once your knafeh is properly separated, spread out, and hydrated, the next two ingredients to focus on are sugar (سكر), which helps give the knafeh its blonde color, and high quality ghee (سمنة). As Chef Omar explains at minute 6:40, the addition of ghee helps separate the knafeh [from itself] (تفصل عن بعضها). Sprinkle about three tablespoons (تلت معقلات) of the sugar over the knafeh, and mix the knafeh in with the sugar (حركه بالسكر).

3:34

According to Chef Omar, knafeh tastes best when cooked on a copper tray (صينية نحاس), but whatever oven-safe tray you have around will do. The knafeh on the tray will go into the oven (الفرن) and the knafeh in the frying pan will be cooked over the stove, or the gas (الغاز). Prepare both dishes by coating them in ghee. Notice how Chef Omar presses or crushes it (بيدحنها) to spread a thick (سميكة) layer over the pan.

5:45

Sprinkle the knafeh onto the greased pan. Pull (نتف) the knafeh as you go so it doesn’t clump and make sure to distributed (بوزّع) it relatively evenly.

6:25

Once you’ve added enough knafeh to fill the bottom of the pan (or pans), pack down the knafeh. Chef Omar uses another pan to compress the tray knafeh, but is pressing it by hand (عم بيضغطها يده) for the frying pan knafeh. Now cover the knafeh with parchment paper (ورقة زبدة) and put something heavy on top to press (كبس) it down even more.

7:50

Crumble the cheese over the knafeh in the pan and press it down. Add the amount of cheese that you like in your knafeh - Chef Omar doesn’t like too much cheese - then spread the ishta (cream) over the cheese.

10:50

The frying pan knafeh is now ready to cook, but the oven knafeh needs an additional layer of knafeh on top of the cheese and ishta. Add a similar amount of knafeh on top as you put on the bottom, then put something heavy on it again to press it down.

12:25

The double layer knafeh is now ready to bake. Check that the oven is set to 140 C, then place the pan in the center of the oven (بنص الفرن) so it’s evenly surrounded by heat as it cooks.

For the frying pan knafeh, set a large burner to a medium flame (نار وسط). Move it (حركها) around over the fire as it cooks so the heat is evenly distributed (تتوزع) across the pan as the knafeh cooks. You may need to turn the heat down a bit so you have a more gentle flame (نار هادية) as you go. You don’t want it to become burnt (محروقة).

13:30

Once the cheese is melted (سايحة) and bubbly and the edges of the knafeh are crispy, turn off the gas and cover the frying pan with a lid. Let it sit for at least five minutes.

13:50

While the stove knafeh is sitting, make the syrup (أطر). Mix three cups of sugar (تلت كاسات سكر) with two cups of water (كاستين ماء). Heat the ingredients together in a pan on the stove, leaving it on warm (دافي) until the ingredients are well combined 

*If you're making both stove top and oven knafeh, you may want to make the syrup after the next step, while the oven knafeh is cooling

14:05

After about 45 minutes (تلت أرباع ساعة), remove the knafeh from the oven.

14:55

Once the oven knafeh has cooled a bit, flip the knafehs over onto a new dish.

*Chef Omar doesn’t mention the cooling step but I would recommend it, otherwise you’ll risk splattering molten ishta and cheese all over your kitchen.

15:38

Pour the syrup over the knafehs quickly (بتنزل عليهن بالأطر ضغري), using however much syrup you like (اد ما بتحب) and garnish with pistachios (فستق).

Vocabulary / مفردات

ابو راتب
Something special or something fancy

خشن/ة
Rough

الفرن
The oven

مقلاية
Frying pan

قاسي/ة
Tough or dense

نكشة
A tiny amount

كذا
A common Levantine word similar to “etc.” or “so on”
1:02 - “بقشطة وجبنة وكذا"
“With ishta and cheese and so on”

نبلش / بلشنا
We start / we started
1:05 - "يلا خلينا عم نبلش"
“Come on, let’s get started”

فرد
To separate or to be alone
انا بفرد
I’m alone
عم بفرد الكنافة
I’m separating the knafeh

ناشف/ة
Dry

رطب/ة
Wet or hydrated
The word for humidity, الرطوبة, shares the same root

صينية
A tray

بيكبس / كبس
He presses / he pressed

خرافي/ة
Fabulous, legendary, or mythical
In other contexts, this word can also mean “a fairy tale”

أشياء لا توصف
or
شي لا يوصف
Something indescribable

سميك/ة
Thick

بتوزع / وزعت
She distributes / she distributed

محروق/ة
Burnt

دافي/ة
Warm

سايح/ة
Melty

فستق
Pistachios