Kunafa/Kunafe

The secret of success in life is eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.-Mark Twain

A call of celebration rings in the air.Yes, Droolsss is back with our first post for the month of June but its a special one to us as this is our 100th post.

 We were wondering and pondering on what should we post as our century hit. Celebrations always are welcomed with a punch of sweetness. An enormous list of sweet delicacies ranging from cakes, puddings, cookies,cheesecakes to our very traditional Indian ladoos flashed through our minds. In the glimpse of a moment it struck to us....why not we try the famous Arab sweet, Kunafa, which is most beautifully captioned the queen of Arab sweets. This caption very well suits this beautiful sweet with its richness of butter, cream, cheese and beauty of the orange kunafa dough saturated with the sweetness of sugar and rose water syrup. Its indeed a heavenly sweet .This will be a sure hit in your homes as it was/is in our home. All in our family say a big yes, to this sweet whenever we plan to buy this. At home it was a first try and lol it was a grand success.Once in a while we can have such rich sweets at least when you are in a mood for celebration, as we are today. For those of you who tend to linger with a guilty feel of heavy fat consumption take an extra one hour workout tomorrow 

So here goes our 100th recipe.

Ingredients
500 grams frozen kunafe pastry(thawed one hour prior to cooking)
500 grams ricotta cheese
400 grams mozarella cheese
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and hot
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons rose water
4-8 drops orange food colour
1/2 cup ground pistachio, to garnish
For the syrup
3 cups sugar
21/2 cups cold water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons rose water
Method
Make the syrup first and allow it to cool.For making the syrup, dissolve the sugar in the measured amount of  water and bring it to a boil on a medium low flame. Once it starts to boil add the lemon juice and allow to boil for 12 minutes. Add the rose water and vanilla extract and heat for 30 seconds more. Off the flame and allow to cool.
Mix the food colour in 4 tablespoons of melted butter and grease a 12 inch round baking pan with this coloured butter.
Chop the kunafe pastry(the kunafe pastry comes shredded resembling vermicelli) in a food processor in batches of four until you get  coarsely shredded kunafe pastry.

Pour melted butter little by little into the shredded pastry and mix with your fingers so that the butter coats the pastry strands well but it should not be soggy(The entire quantity of butter mentioned will be required or else the pastry will stick to the pan while cooking).
In another bowl mix the cheeses well. Sprinkle the sugar and rose water and mix well.
Layer half of the shredded pastry on the prepared baking pan and press into the pan well.

Spread the cheese on top of this and press well.

Finish off the top layering with the remaining shredded pastry and press well again.
Bake this in a preheated oven(180 degree celsius) for 30- 35 minutes or until the top attains a slight golden colour.
Remove from the oven. Give the pan a gentle shake so that the pastry separates from the sides. Now invert the hot kunafe into a serving platter.
Pour the prepared sugar syrup all over the kunafe and garnish with coarsely ground pistachio.
Cut into your desired shapes and serve.