From Grandmother to Granddaughter: A Syrian String Cheese Recipe Is Passed Down

Shared by Moselle Tobias and Florence Cohen
Recipe Roots: Aleppo, Syria > Brooklyn, NY + Deal, NJ 

In the 1930’s, looking for a place to live more comfortably as a Jewish family, Moselle Tobias’s grandmother moved over 7,500 miles from Aleppo, Syria to Mexico City. “A lot of Aleppo-born Jews at that time were moving to Mexico,” Moselle explains. While a small part of the family set down roots here, her mother Celia had other plans. Born in Mexico City, she left for New York when she was just a teenager looking to join the city’s Sephardic community and to marry, which she did in 1949.

Celia carried her community’s recipes and traditions from Aleppo with her to Brooklyn. Growing up, Moselle remembers her mother making traditional Syrian recipes like sambusak, or small cheese-filled pies, torpedo-shaped meatballs wrapped in bulgar also known as kibbeh, and stuffed vegetables. There were also customs like enjoying Syrian string cheese and ka’ak, or anise laced crackers. 

Celia didn’t make the string cheese often, but she showed her daughter Moselle how to make it the traditional way. As an adult, Moselle would buy the cheese, but she’s since moved towards only serving foods she’s made from scratch in her home. Syrian string cheese was no exception. She asked her friend and sister-in-law to remind her of the technique and started to make it for herself and the extended family. 

The cheese is so common in the family today, Moselle explains, they eat it “anytime we’re hungry…. When I serve it, I put it out for lunch. Sometimes I put it out before lunch. Sometimes we just snack on it.” It is always on hand. 

By the time her granddaughter Florence was 16 and in high school, Moselle was a master of making the cheese. She taught a class at a Sephardic community center, sharing her cheese technique and asked Florence to help as her assistant. Once Florence got the hang of making the cheese, she started to make it at home, selling it to neighbors. “I realized no one else in the family does it, only my grandma,” Florence explains. She wanted to continue the tradition and to keep herself busy while finishing high school. 

In the eight years since, she’s grown the operation into a business called Grandma’s Cheese. She sells her own version of her grandmother’s recipe at 10 stores in the New York area — even at markets where Moselle shops. “Very often I’m in a grocery store,” Moselle says. “And I hear someone say: ‘Where’s the Grandma’s Cheese?’ and I’m standing there and I find it very very funny…. I tell them: ‘Oh, I’m the grandma.’”

Moselle's String Cheese

Makes: 3 cheese twists
Total time: 1 hour

Ingredients
3 lbs mozzarella cheese curd, chopped into ½ inch cubes
¾ teaspoon nigella seeds, divided
3 ¾ teaspoons kosher salt, divided

Preparation
1. Set aside a large bowl with an ice bath and one sheet pan. 

2. Make the cheese: Place a non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Place 1 pound of cheese curd into the pan and sprinkle ¼ teaspoon nigella seed and 1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt into the pan. Using 2 heatproof spatulas, stir and knead the cheese curd in the pan as the cheese melts and separates from the liquid whey. Knead the cheese until all the cubes have melted and formed one smooth piece of cheese. 

3. Shape the cheese: Quickly transfer the piece of cheese onto a sheet pan using the spatulas. Wear a pair of kitchen gloves to reduce the heat contact from the cheese on to your hands. Working quickly, create a hole in the center of the cheese with your fingers and start stretching the cheese into a ring-like shape. Twist the curd to make two loops and place the loops on top of each other to make them into one loop again. Stretch the loop with your two hands and when you can stretch no further twist the curd again to make two loops and overlap the loops to make one larger and thicker loop. Continue stretching the cheese and twisting it about 6 to 8 more times. For the final twist, twist the curd in opposite directions (like ringing out a towel) until it is tight and insert one end of the loop into the other end to create one cheese twist. Immediately place the cheese twist into the ice water bowel. Repeat the melting and shaping of the cheese twists with the remaining cheese curds, 1 pound at a time. Chill the cheese twists in the ice bath for at least 45 minutes to 1 hour. Drain the cheese from the water.

4. String the cheese: Untangle a cheese twist into one log of cheese. Starting from one end, pinch about  1 inch from the cheese and pull it away creating a long string of cheese. Continue pinching and pulling the strings of cheese until you have your desired amount of cheese.

5. Serve the cheese cold with ka’ak or vegetables. 

Make ahead: Store the cheese twists in an airtight container a refrigerator for up to one week or in a freezer for up to 3 months.

Moselle's Ka'ak

Photos by Penny De Los Santos

When we met up with Moselle and Florence in Brooklyn, Moselle also shared her ka’ak recipe. “Ka’ak has been made for centuries,” Moselle explains. But when she was growing up, it was always purchased from Syrian shops. About eight years ago, she decided she wanted to make her own. “I like to do everything homemade and it was one of the last things on my list that I wanted to learn,” she adds. Today, she makes it four or five times a year in large batches, spending the entire day baking, saving many of the crackers in the freezer and sharing some with family members as well.

Makes: 120 to 140 crackers
Total time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients
¼ cup shortening
4 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
½ tablespoon granulated sugar
¾  teaspoon whole nigella seeds
¼ tablespoon ground mahlab
1 tablespoon whole anise seeds
5 tablespoons canola oil
1 ounce fresh yeast
1 ¼ cup water, divided
2 eggs, whisked
1 cup whole sesame seeds

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. 

2. Melt shortening in a pot over low heat until it forms into a liquid, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. Make the dough: Place flour, salt, sugar, nigella seeds, mahlab, anise seeds, canola oil, shortening, and yeast into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add 1 cup of lukewarm water and ¼ cup of warm water into the bowl. Using the dough hook attachment, mix the ingredients on low until combined and then raise the speed to medium for about 1 to 3 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. 

4. Shape the ka’ak: Transfer the dough onto a flat surface. Take about 1 tablespoon of dough and roll it into a thin log that measures about 5 inches long and ¼ inch in thickness. Using a small knife, make 8 evenly spaced slits halfway into the log, crosswise. Pinch both ends of the log together, keeping the slits on the outside to form a ring-like shape with fringes. Set the shaped dough onto the parchment lined baking sheet and continue with the rest of the dough. Once all the dough is shaped into ka’ak, brush about 5 to 7 shaped pieces of dough with egg wash. Evenly press about 1/4 teaspoon of sesame seeds over the egg wash with your fingertips. Continue placing the egg wash and sesame seeds onto the rest of the pieces of dough, in batches of about 5 to 7 at a time until all the shaped pieces of dough are covered.

5. Bake the ka’ak: Place the ka’ak into the oven and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes until golden. Remove the ka’ak from the oven. Lower the oven temperature to 225 degrees and place back into the oven. Continue baking for about 20 minutes until the crackers are dry and crisp in the center. 

6. Serve at room temperature.

Make Ahead: Make the ka’ak in advance and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or place in an airtight container in the freezer and store for up to 1 to 2 months.