I messed up: picked up 3 big bags of coarse semolina thinking it was couscous from the supermarket. Opened and tested a bag, too fine for couscous, and not fine like flour. The 2 unopened bags will return to shop.
Any recommendations to use up the remaining bag is welcomed.
Thanks in advance.
Got a good blender? If so you should be able to use it to process fine enough to use for pasta.
Read more on this.
A regular blender will not grind coarse semolina into fine. For this, you need a food grinder, grain mill, or at least a high-powered blender like a Vitamix (and then you need to follow the special instructions for grinding in it).
Mrs H mainly uses semolina in baking. She has a bread recipe that uses 20% semolina and 80% plain flour. It’s handy to have around as it can sort of dry pastry out making it easier to roll. Pizza dough, for example. Or, just the other, we defrosted some homemade gnocchi that needed reshaping. In both cases, a dusting of semolina went on the work surface.
There’s a Greek olive oil cake made with semolina, ravani (or revani).
My mom makes an excellent version.
And here’s a recipe for melomakarona, aka finikia, aka phoenikia, Greek olive oil semolina cookies, also soaked with citrusy syrup.
(paywalled, but there are lots of other recipes online.)
Thanks!
Sprinkle a couple of teaspoons over par-boiled & roughed up potatoes prior to roasting. They should get extra crispy.
Pretty interesting - semolina is rava in several indian languages!
If you want to veer indian, there are MANY semolina recipes. From savory to sweet. Look for rava or suji/suji - those are the most common indian names for semolina.
Easiest - suji sheera or halwa / sweet semolina pudding (for lack of a better term, and its savory inverse - upma.
More elaborate, but barely - rava idli, rava dosa, rava dhokla.
Modern india. chefs make a westernized “polenta” type porridge that’s basically upma with extra liquid and western seasonings. Really good with roasted mushrooms!
And you could certainly use it like couscous - follow the method for upma (toast the semolina in ghee or oil, but instead of the liquid proportion for upma use half, and then add little by little till it’s fluffed to your taste). It will be slightly clumpier than couscous, but the grain size and texture are similar (when the semolina is not over-hydrated).
Makes a nice coating for fried fish, shrimp, etc. Season/spice the seafood well / heavily, then coat with the semolina and let it sit for a bit to settle and hydrate somewhat. Then shallow fry. It’s a regional specialty - even other indians are surprised and delighted when they first encounter this style of dish, haha. “Rava fry” if you’re looking for a recipe.
Thanks so much for all the suggestions and inspirations. Will certainly do research on these Indian dishes.
I’ll find a few links for you later and post - didn’t have time last night.
This is the basic savory “porridge” / breakfast or meal - you can skip what you don’t have (curry leaves, green chillies) and it’s very flexible so you can add small-chopped vegetables or use thia as a side for any main dish, like couscous or polenta:
This is the sweet version of the same dish (you can tweak the butter and sugar to taste):
The other ones I mentioned;
Will try probably the breakfast suggestions first. Rava Idli looks good. Thanks for taking time to share! Will post back.
Rava idli, Dhokla, and Dosa use the same batter (before you mix in vegetables), so you can try all 3!
Dhokla is the easiest to cook - use a small cake pan in a steamer. Idli is the same idea, but in a specialty (dented) plate. Dosa is just a (crisp in this case) crepe from the same batter.
Accompaniments are common across idli and dosa - coconut chutney and/or sambar (lentils / dal).
Though my nephews would attest that no accompaniments are actually necessary 
