Künefe

Künefe is one of the most beloved desserts of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Arab world, and its origin is fiercely claimed by multiple countries. Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria all have deep traditions of the dish. The most persuasive argument places its origins in the Levant — specifically in the region of Nablus in Palestine, where "knafeh" has been made for over a thousand years using the region's distinctive white cheese.

In Turkey, the city of Hatay — historically a crossroads between Arabic and Turkish culture, only becoming part of Turkey in 1939 — is considered the home of künefe. Hatay's version uses Hatay's own local stretchy white cheese (hatay peyniri), which has a mild saltiness that perfectly balances the sweet syrup. The dish crossed north into Anatolian Turkish cities through trade and migration, and today it is eaten from Istanbul to Sydney.

The preparation is an exercise in precise heat management: shredded kataifi pastry (tel kadayıf) is filled with unsalted stretchy cheese, pressed into a copper pan, and cooked simultaneously from above and below until the pastry is golden-crisp and the cheese is molten. It is then flooded with simple syrup while still hot and topped with crushed pistachios. It must be served hot — at Cappadocia Café, it arrives at the table still bubbling.