Kunefe

Antakya (Hatay) and the broader Levantine corridor — Aleppo, Nablus and Antakya have competed over the dish's origin for centuries, with documentation in Arab cookbooks from the 10th century onward (kanāfa). The Turkish form crystallized in southeastern cities (Hatay, Gaziantep) using local fresh stretching cheese; the Nabulsi version uses akkawi. Both predate modern borders.

Antakya, Aleppo and Nablus have argued over kanāfa since at least the 10th century — the dish appears in Arab cookbooks of that era. The Turkish form uses Hatay's fresh stretching cheese; Nablus uses akkawi. Hot pastry meets cool syrup at the table — reverse the temperatures and the crust collapses.

Two layers of shredded kadayif pastry sandwiching a slab of fresh, unsalted, stretchy cheese (traditionally Hatay's Antakya cheese), pan-baked in clarified butter until both faces fry to bright orange-red, then drenched in cool sugar syrup. Cut at the table — the cheese pulls in long strings. Eat immediately. Once the syrup soaks the lower crust, crispness is gone.

The temperature contrast is the whole point — the pastry must be screaming-hot from the pan, the syrup must be cool, and they meet only at service. Hot syrup poured on hot kunefe collapses the crust; cold syrup hits the surface, glazes it, and only enough seeps in to flavor the top layer. The cheese must be one that stretches without releasing salt or breaking — supermarket mozzarella works as a substitute; cheddar absolutely doesn't.