What Greek pastry is made from very thin strands of dough wrapped around a filling? The answer is kataifi.
Kataifi is a Greek pastry made with extremely fine, threadlike strands of dough wrapped around a filling, most commonly chopped walnuts or almonds. The pastry is baked until crisp and golden, then soaked with a flavored sugar syrup often containing lemon, cinnamon, or cloves.
The strands are made from a thin flour-based batter dispensed through fine openings onto a hot surface, where it forms hairlike threads. This technique gives kataifi its distinctive shredded appearance and crunchy texture. The name has related forms across the region, including kadayif, kadaif, and kataifi.
Kataifi belongs to a broader family of desserts found across the eastern Mediterranean, Balkans, Levant, and Turkey. It is related to, but not identical with, baklava: baklava typically uses layered sheets of phyllo, whereas kataifi uses spun strands. The same type of dough can also appear in cheese-filled desserts such as knafeh, though Greek kataifi is especially associated with nut fillings and syrup.