Cheese Kadaif

                                                                               Receta en Español

I already have made a dessert with Kadaif to present Albania: Nuts Kadaif , the same dessert can be eaten in Armenia, it is delicious, but in Armenia they also make cheese kadaif.

This dessert is also called Kunafa.

Ingredients:

• 340 grams of butter.
• 500 grams Kadaif.
• 400 grams fresh mozzarella cheese.
• 80 grams goat cheese.
• 400 grams sugar.
• 1/2 liter water.
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar.
• A splash of lemon juice.
• Pine nuts or other kind of nuts.

Method:

1-  Extend Kadaif for 2 hours to make it get dry ,turn it on the other side and let it dry for another 2 hours.

2-  Spread half of the Kadaif on an oven proof dish, if Kadaif is very long you can cut it.

3- Prepare ghee, it is clarified butter. It is important to make this clarification to prevent butter to get burnt into the oven , given that the white part of the butter is the part that gets the higher temperature.

Heat butter , once it is liquid , turn the fire off. Take a spoon, and get rid of the white part of the butter that remains on the upper side.

4- Pour half of the liquid butter all over the surface of the Kadaif.  

5- Cut both cheeses into slices and put them over the Kadaif , building some layers.



6-  Spread the rest of Kadaif.

7-  Pour the remaining butter.

8- Preheat oven at 200 ºC. Cook in oven for 25 minutes until it gets brown. Let it cool.

For syrup:

9 - Take a pan, combine sugar, water, vanilla and a dash of lemon, bring it to a boil. Stir until sugar is well dissolved. It should take 30 minutes. Then turn off the heat and pour the cold water.

10 - Once Kataifi is cold, pour Syrup over it. Sprinkle pine nuts and let it cool at least 1 hour to let the syrup dry. The more you wait the more delicious it will be. Then cut in pieces and serve.

Where to buy Kataifi in Madrid

You can buy Kataifi near Madrid mosque, at Antonio Calvo street , I bought it at 'El Hogar'.

My Comments to the recipe:

When I made Nuts Kadaif I noted that I should pour all the syrup and the taste of the dessert is marvellous 24 hours after it has absorbed all the syrup.
In this case, it is not the same because cheese doesn't allow Kadaif to absorb the syrup, it is better to eat it when still hot.



Armenia

Dolma

                                                                               Receta en Español

Dolmá are some vegetables leaves stuffed with meat and rice. This dish is original from several countries of middle east: Armenia, Turkey, Egipt, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Balkan countries, Greece , Iraq and Iran.

For this reason, you can find different ways to do dolmas.

Today I present the most typical dish from Armenia , I found this recipe at this website where you can also find some information about Armenia:

http://www.armenianow.com/features/mama_makes_it_better 

Ingredients (For 30 dolma):

• 500 grams mince.
• 1 chopped onion.
• 1/2 cup round rice.
• 70 grams butter.
• 1 tablespoon tomato sauce.
• 1 pot of preserved grape leaves.
• Black pepper.
• Cayenne.
• 1 dessert spoon basil.
• 1 dessert spoon parsley.
• 1 dessert spoon ground coriander.
• 1 dessert spoon dill.
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
• Salt.
• 2 tablespoon pine nuts.

Method:


1-  Sautée onions with a little butter until onion gets light brown.

2- Add rice and cook at low heat for 10 minutes.

3- Add the rest of the ingredients: (meat, spices,lemon juice,butter,tomato sauce and pine nuts) sautée for 2 minutes, the meat should not be overcooked because it will be cooked inside the dolma.

4- Let the meat get cold.

5-  Wash the grape leaves, use an absorbent paper to dry the leaves.
Cut the petiole of the leaf.

6-  Now it is time to stuff the leafs, follow this instructions to do it the right way.

Put the leaf on a flat surface, the same way you see at the picture, put a little quantity of meat in the middle of the leaf.

7- To fold the leaves , take the ends of the middle and fold one on top of the other, we can call it the 'arms' of the leaf:

8- Take the two lower parts of the leaf (we can call them 'the legs'), fold them on top of the 'arms'.

9- Now take the upper part of the leaf, 'the head', fold it over the rest of the dolma.

This is the result:

10 - Now it is time to cook dolmas. Take a big casserole, put some grape leaves on the bottom of the casserole. This is to prevent our dolmas to stick to the bottom.

11- Now place all the dolmas inside the casserole:

12- Pour water just to cover all the dolmas:

13-  Put a dish on top of the dolmas, and something on top of it to prevent dolmas to float up.

14- Cook for half an hour at low heat.

My comments to the recipe

The taste of the meat mixed with all the spices is delicious, the grape leaves provide a new flavour to the meat, it is a nice way to eat meat.

Where to find the ingredients

The grape leaves can be bought at the shops at Antonio Calvo street, close to Madrid's mosque.







Armenia