Kadayif (also spelled kadaif, kadayıf, kataifi, kadaifi, katayef or kataïf; Arabic: قطايف) is a family of Middle Eastern pastry products. In modern usage, the term often refers specifically to fine shredded pastry dough used in desserts such as knafeh and tel kadayıf. Depending on context, it may refer either to the dough itself or to finished desserts made from it.
Etymology
The Turkish word kadayıf derives from Ottoman Turkish قطائف (ḳaṭāyıf / ḳaṭaʿif), which in turn comes from Arabic قطايف (qaṭāʾif). In Arabic culinary usage, qaṭāʾif referred to an older family of pastries. In Turkish, the term later came to denote both the shredded dough and the desserts prepared from it.
History
Kadayif is of Middle Eastern origin. Medieval Arabic qaṭāʾif is generally regarded as an antecedent of Ottoman and Turkish kadayıf forms, which developed into a broader category of pastries and desserts. According to The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, the oldest known qaṭāʾif appear in a tenth-century Abbasid cookbook. Food historian Mary Işın writes that kadayif originated as a griddle cake in medieval Arab cuisine and was transformed in early Ottoman times into pastry threads cooked on a griddle, a form that later spread widely in the Near East.
Preparation and Usage
Modern tel kadayıf consists of very fine strands resembling vermicelli. It is produced from a thin batter made with special-purpose kadayıf flour, poured through fine openings onto a heated rotating griddle, where it cooks into hair-like strands. These strands may be sold fresh, refrigerated, or frozen as an intermediate product, or used in finished desserts. In Turkey, tel kadayıf is covered by standard 10344/T3 as a semi-processed flour-and-water product.
Finished desserts made from kadayıf strands are typically baked or fried and then soaked in sugar syrup. The strands are also known as kadayif noodles, string kadayif, wire kadayif, tray kadayif, and tel kadayıf, although some of these names are also used for finished desserts. Common fillings include milled almonds, walnuts, pistachios, or kaymak (clotted cream).
