Alright y’all, it’s time to channel your inner Auntie and make some Kunafah, with an -ah instead of an -eh because I’m Egyptian and THAT’S HOW I TALK.

For those of you who don’t know what Kunafah is, I describe it as baklava’s creamy, gets into VIP, bad and boujee lil cousin. The cousin that achieves all your dreams and the family fawns over, but they don’t even come to the functions that often. They moved. So what’s left in the little cake stand at your favorite ‘Mediterranean’ joint is… baklava. 

Instead of layers of flaky phyllo, kunafah has shredded phyllo that crisp up even more beautifully and instead of a crunchy pistachio center, here we have a cream center. Sounds better already right?

If you DO know what it is and grew up with it, you might be like me and find it hard to trust a recipe on the internet. Instead, you call mama/baba/tunt/titta 7 times for vague measurements that don’t mean anything with ingredients you never used because they’re only at the Arab store. Or maybe you went abroad, and you’re fancy now and you can’t find it anywhere! You can’t wait to go back! What are you gonna do, fam? I got you.

SN: they’re not only at the Arab store anymore! In the ingredients list, I’ve linked Amazon pages for the items that might be harder to find so at least you’ll know what it looks like. The farina is a finely milled wheat, which is used as a breakfast cream of wheat situation in some cultures too, so you can use a different/cheaper brand if you find it.

Recipe

For the kunafah:

1. Preheat your oven to 345. Why so specific? Why not 350? Do you mean 375? IDK I asked my mom THREE times and she insisted it was 345 and that’s the truth.
2. In a medium sized pot on medium heat, plop in a spoonful of clarified butter. Add farina to the butter and stir constantly, without raising the heat, for several minutes. You should start to smell a nutty fragrance and see the grains get a little toasty.
3. Add the can of puck, and incorporate it into your toasted farina. This takes a second and it is going to look too thick. Add ¼ of heavy cream, a little at a time, and feel free to add more until you have a loose custard-like mixture. Add vanilla off-heat and set aside.
4. I used a round cake pan for a thick layer of custard, and I’ve also used a 9 x 11 pan for a thinner kunafah. I suggest just adjusting to whatever baking pan you have instead of going out and buying one. Here’s the fun part – rip a couple handfuls of phyllo dough from the package and put them in the bottom of the pan. Drizzle with clarified or melted butter, and start ripping it up into shreds, incorporating the butter. It should end up looking like a shiny, pillow mass of strings. Form it into an even layer into the bottom of a pan. In a separate bowl, repeat the process.
5. Add the custard in an even layer. On top of the custard, add your second batch of buttered shredded phyllo. Pop into the oven at for 30-40 minutes. It’s done when the top is golden and crispy.

For the syrup:

1. Everything into the pot on medium low for 20 minutes, stirring every now and again. It should turn into a syrup slightly thicker than simple syrup.
2. Once out of the oven, while the kunafah is still warm, try to evenly distribute the syrup all over. It feels like a lot of sugar, but remember you haven’t added sugar to the kunafah at all yet! Let it soak up all the sugary goodness for as long as you can let it sit (15 minutes is good) and enjoy while it’s still a little warm!

A word on clarified butter:

Maybe the most village thing I do, at the beginning of each move, is… go to costco, buy four pounds of butter, clarify the whole batch and section it into jars which I then keep in the freezer.

The perks of clarified butter is that the water has been boiled out so it burns way less easily. A little bit goes a long way for frying pancakes, sauteing veggies, and browning meat (especially chicken hooooohmygod). People tend to use the same amount of clarified butter as they would regular butter when it’s really a more concentrated version, so be mindful.

If you’re interested in making it, simply take as much butter (salted or unsalted, doesn’t technically matter, I use unsalted) as you want to clarify and put in a pot over very low heat. For a pound, I would leave it alone for about an hour, checking periodically. The butter will melt, and then foam, and then the solids will drop to the bottom which is how you know it is done. Pour the butter into a jar, leaving the solids on the bottom. The mixture will solidify into an almost coconut oil consistency. That’s all there is to it!

No big intro here, just Mama Mona’s soup. Perfect for cold days and it’ll keep in the fridge for yummy, filling lunches. I know y’all don’t think ahead like this BUT for those of you who are about it, you can also freeze portions flat in zip-lock bags and defrost when you want some soup.

Recipe

1. Wash your lentils in a colander and run water until it runs clear, or put them in a bowl and rinse, drain and repeat.
2. Into a pot – add everything. Lentils, veggie chunks, and water or stock. You want the level of liquid to be double the level of the lentils. Add cumin and salt. Let it come to a boil uncovered and then lower to a simmer and cover for about 20 minutes.
3. Stick an immersion blender in that thang, or transfer in batches to a blender.

• I usually will do the following: batch in the blender, blend, and pour into a separate bowl. I continue until it’s all been through the blender once, and then reverse the process and put batches into the blender from the bowl and empty back it into the pot.

4. Taste for salt. If it’s too thick, add water. If it’s too watery, cook it down. If the texture is strange, blend it more. It should be creamy and delicious. If you like it spicy, add cayenne to taste and see what happens.
5. Add olive oil, clarified butter, or regular degular butter in a separate pot. If you have vermicelli or orzo or another baby pasta, toast a handful of it CAREFULLY over LOW heat while standing over it and stirring FREQUENTLY until it’s golden and happy. Add ass many servings of soup as you’re about to eat and stir the noodles in. Raise the heat to medium and cook until the noodles are cooked through.

My baba’s recipe, aka the backbone of my potluck contributions over the years, aka the easiest way to feed a crowd aka the most Egyptian thing I know how to make aka the best thing you will eat this week for dinner and once for lunch the next day aka the best way to stuff anything. ANYTHING. This makes a ton of stuffing which is okay because you can freeze it in a ziplock bag and pull it out for another day.

Recipe

1. ALL OF THIS is going in one big pot, so throw down some olive oil in a pot big enough to give each addition a little room to dance around with everything else.
2. Heat up some olive oil and add your diced onion. Cook until translucent but do not brown.
3. Add ground beef and cook it through.
4. Add chopped herbs and give em a stir and a minute.
5. Add tomatoey goodness of your choice – stir.
6. Add the rice – STIR.
7. Add your spices.
8. At this point, if you used anything other than tomato paste the stuffing probably has some excess water. Let it hang out on low heat, partially covered, until the water evaporates. The rice will absorb some and cook a little but really want you want a relatively dry mixture that sticks together so you can roll it up.
9. If you used paste, cook long enough to get the raw paste flavor out. Add a little water. In fact, take this as a life lesson – ALWAYS cook tomato paste out. It’s not a tomato.
10. Now you can let your stuffing cool while you prepare what is to be stuffed:

Peppers:
The easy, fast, I’m-20-something-and-have-an-illusion-about-how busy-I-am way is to cut the tops out of some bell peppers and stuff those. The trick is to remember the stuffing is going to expand so fill up the sides and leave a crater in the middle.

Stand up the peppers in a pot and fill up to halfway with water. Haphazardly squeeze a lemon over top and bring the water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover tightly, just as you would regular rice. Keep at a simmer for about 20-30 minutes and then check the stuffing for doneness. If the rice is cooked through, drain the rest of the water and serve! If not, cover for another 10 minutes and try again.

* IF you have to make a ridiculously large amount, like for that potluck, you can do this in one of those disposable aluminum pans – just stand the peppers up and fill halfway with boiling water. Cover with foil and put into a 400 degree oven. This will take longer, but it’s great for a big group. MAKE SURE THE WATER IS BOILING I BEG *

Grape leaves:
Rinse your grape leaves when they come out of the jar and roll them about the size of your pinky. To do this, first pinch the stem off. Lay a grape leaf smooth side down in a plate and put a spoonful of stuffing at the stem. Roll like a burrito. Fill your pot with them, add water until it barely reaches the surface of the grape leaves and squeeze your lemon. Boil, simmer, etc.

Cabbage rolls (cause you got time apparently):
Pick a bright, firm cabbage and take a paring knife to the core to cut it out. Drop the whole thing in a big pot of boiling water until all the leaves are soft and come apart easily. Drain and cool, then take that paring knife and cut out the tough middles of each leaf. You’ll wrap each half(ish) the same way as the grape leaves. If one end is more stiff and left open, that’s ok. Boil then simmer, etc. I like to add cumin and tomato paste (for color) to the boiling water but this is not required. No lemon here.