With this blog post I’m embarking on an occasional series of suggestions for using up those ingredients that you bought for a special recipe and which are now dying in the fridge or drowsing quietly in the cupboard. Some of them dry ingredients, as here, some fresh. I hope you’ll get some ideas from the recipes I’ve managed to dig up. I don’t guarantee them—they’re just suggestions that you might like to try.
Here are some ideas for using semolina—one of which will also suggest what you might do with that orange-flower water you rashly bought! The dry particles of semolina swell up hugely when exposed to liquid and heat, so what looks like quite a small packet of it will go a long way.
We don’t see semolina so much in recipes from the English-speaking countries, but in other parts of the world—especially India, the Middle East and North Africa—it is used quite a lot. Many of these recipes are sweet: it’s a very popular ingredient in sweets and cakes—but semolina can also be used in savoury dishes. Note that it’s a wheat product, so not suitable if you need to be gluten-free.
SEMOLINA SWEETS
Semolina is often used in Indian recipes for sweets, some of them very tricky to make. Here’s a simple one that I’ve found works well. It’s based on an Anglo-Indian recipe for “Hulwa” by Mary Kennedy Core, an American missionary to India in the 19th century. She used Cream of Wheat.
Semolina Halwa
Have ready a non-stick flat pan like a slice tin before you start.
* 1 cup semolina * 1 cup sugar * 3 cups water
* 5 or 6 cardamom pods * 1/2 cup butter or margarine
1. Crush the cardamom pods with a heavy implement and extract the seeds. Discard the pods. Grind the seeds to a powder if you prefer.
2. Melt the butter or margarine in a medium-sized frying pan or electric frypan on medium heat.
3. Fry the semolina, stirring gently, until “it begins to have a nutty flavor and to be slightly brown”.
4. Add cardamom seeds, then the water and sugar.
5. The semolina will thicken fast once the water is added. Stir well, cooking briskly, until it forms a thick, rich paste. When it is very hard to move the spoon it is done.
6. Press very quickly (it sets fast) into a flat pan.
7. If liked, decorate the top: crushed nuts or sultanas can be used, or silver cashoos.
8. “Cut in squares like fudge. Very good and wholesome.”
Adapted from: Mary Kennedy Core. “Hulwa”, The Khaki Kook Book: A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes Mostly from Hindustan. [New York], Abingdon Press, [1917]
As we’ll see, this method of cooking sweetmeats, which are typically eaten in India as a between-meals snack or served as a welcome to guests, can also be used for what in Western cuisine would be considered cakes or “slices”, or dessert dishes. In fact you could well serve this “Hulwa” as a dessert course or with coffee.
Semolina for cakes and biscuits
Semolina is used in two basic ways for cakes, though there are some variants which combine the two. Either you can use it as you would flour, mixing wet and dry ingredients and then baking the result in the oven, or you can cook the wet mixture on the stove stop until very thick, then pour it out in a shallow layer into a greased pan and let it set until cooled, as in the “Semolina Halwa” recipe.
Both types may or may not be soused in a sugar syrup. The individual recipes tell you when.
I’m not much of a baker but I have made this first semolina cake with success.
Orange Halva Cake
* 9 oz [approx 265 g] semolina * 1 orange
* 4 oz [125 g] ground almonds * 3 teaspoons baking powder
* 3 eggs * 6 oz [175 g] sugar * 6 oz [175 g] butter
Syrup:
* 6 oz [175 g] sugar * 5 tablespoons water
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice * cinnamon
* 1 tablespoon candied peel * 3 tablespoons orange juice
* Optional: whipped cream & almonds for decoration
Beat until creamy 6 oz [175 g] butter with the same amount of sugar and the grated rind of 1 orange, then mix in the juice of the orange. Whip 3 eggs and add gradually to the butter mixture.
Stir in 9 oz [about 265 g] of semolina, 4 oz [125 g] ground almonds and 3 teaspoons baking powder.
When all is well mixed turn into a buttered ring mould and bake in a 425 deg.[F.] [218 C] oven for about 10 mins. Reduce heat to 355 deg. F [180 C] and bake for a further 30 mins.
When cake is nearly cooked make a syrup of 6 oz [175 g] caster sugar, 5 tablespoons water, 2 dessertspoons lemon juice, pinch cinnamon and the candied peel [finely sliced]. Boil together till syrup thickens slightly, then add 3 tablespoons orange juice.
Turn the cake out of the mould as soon as possible after it is cooked.** Pour the syrup over it at once but slowly, so that it is absorbed by the hot cake.
This can be served hot, but is better cold, [optionally] with the middle of the mould filled with whipped cream*** and almonds.
Source: “Good Food”, The Observer, [1970s]
** Other recipes advise to pour the syrup over the cake while still in the mould, which I think works better.
*** When served as a cake I much prefer it without the cream. It can also be served as a dessert, in which case the cream could be suitable, but not after a rich meal.
Such semolina or “halva” cakes became popular in British and then Antipodean cookery in the 1970s-early 1980s. They signal the resurrection of semolina (other than as a nursery pudding) in British cuisine after many decades.
The next recipe, for small semolina cakes, is a Turkish recipe sourced from the Australian TV channel, SBS. You’ll see that it pours syrup on the hot baked cake mixture.
Pistachio Semolina Cake[s] (Ravani)
* 50 g fine semolina * 50 g plain flour
* 100 g ground pistachios * 5 medium eggs, separated
* 1 tbsp sugar, plus 1 pinch extra * 1 orange, zested
Syrup:
* 600 ml fresh orange juice * 1 orange, zested * 500 g sugar
To serve:
* 300 ml cream * 300 ml Greek-style yoghurt * 2 oranges
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter a muffin tray that has 6 large moulds.
2. In a large bowl beat the egg whites with a pinch of sugar until stiff. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with 1 tbsp of sugar and the orange zest until pale. Add the semolina, flour and pistachios to the egg whites and partly mix through. Add the egg yolks and fold through until combined. Spoon into the muffin tray and bake for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, make the syrup. Put the orange juice, zest and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 10 minutes or until syrupy and reduced by half. Leave to cool.
4. Whip the cream until thick and stir in the yoghurt.
5. Segment the oranges by cutting off the peel with a small sharp knife, making sure you remove all the white pith. Cut on either side of each segment, removing wedges of flesh but leaving the membranes.
6. When the cakes are cooked, ladle over some of the cooled syrup and leave to soak for at least 10 minutes (or longer if you prefer the cakes softer). Serve the cakes with the whipped cream and yoghurt, orange segments and a little extra syrup.
–Makes six large muffin-size cakes.
Source: Gulbahar Kaya. SBS,
https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/pistachio-semolina-cake-ravani
The next set of semolina cakes are what today in Australasia we’d call “slices”: after cooking in a shallow pan the cake is cut up into pieces before serving. Such recipes derive from the traditional dishes of the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent, where they would be snacks or sweets. Like all slices, you could serve them for afternoon tea or dessert.
Firstly a traditional Middle-Eastern recipe, a buttery semolina-yoghurt slice, with almonds and syrup. The approach is very like that used for the Orange Halva Cake:
Basbousa bil Laban Zabadi (Basbousa with Yoghurt)
* 1 1/2 teacups semolina * unsalted butter [250 g]
* 1/2 teacup blanched almonds * 1/4 pint [150 ml] yoghurt
* 1 teacup sugar * 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar or few drops vanilla essence
* clotted or whipped cream (optional) [to garnish]
Syrup:
* 1 1/2 teacups sugar * 1/2 teacup water * juice 1 lemon
Make a thin syrup by boiling the sugar, water and lemon juice together and simmering till it thickens. Allow to cool, and chill.
Toast the blanched almonds and chop finely. Melt 1/4 lb [125 g] butter.
Beat the yoghurt with the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter, semolina, baking powder, almonds and vanilla sugar or essence, and beat well till thoroughly mixed.
Pour into a large, rectangular buttered baking tray and bake in a fairly hot oven (400. deg. [F], [200-205 C]) for 1/2 hour.
Pour the cold syrup over the hot basbousa as soon as it comes out of the oven. Cut into lozenge shapes and return to the oven for a further 3 minutes.
Serve soused with 1/4 lb [125 g] melted butter and spread with thick clotted cream or whipped cream if you like.
Source: Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1970. (1st published 1968)
Next is a modern recipe for a semolina “slice”, loosely translated from a French website. It derives from North African and Middle Eastern cuisine, but unlike the Claudia Roden recipe, here the stove-top method of cooking the semolina is used rather than the oven.
Gâteau de semoule à la fleur d’oranger
(Semolina Slice With Orange-Flower Water)
* 75 g semolina * 1/2 litre (500 ml) water
* 3 tablespoons of sugar or to taste
* 1/2 teaspoon orange-flower water or to taste
1. In a good-sized saucepan mix the semolina, sugar and water together, and add the orange-flower water. Bring to the boil, stirring from time to time, turn down the heat and cook, stirring, until the mixture is very thick.
2. Turn it out into a shallow pan or dish and cool in the fridge for two hours.
3. Cut into small pieces and serve.
Source: CuisineAZ, https://www.cuisineaz.com
Now we come to biscuit recipes. Here’s a traditional Indian recipe which uses cardamoms to make deliciously fragrant semolina biscuits:
Semolina Cookies (Nan Khatai)
* 1 cup semolina * 6 cardamoms, skinned and ground
* 4 tablespoons sugar * 4 tablespoons ghee or butter
* chopped nuts for decoration
Beat the ghee and sugar together till creamy. Sieve in the semolina and cardamom and beat well. Leave the mixture for half an hour.
Knead well and shape into small flat cakes. Decorate with chopped or grated nuts and place on a greased tin in an oven at 325°F/263°C for about half an hour till golden.
Source: Jack Santa Maria. Indian Vegetarian Cookery. London, Rider, 1973
SEMOLINA IN DESSERTS
Forget the English-style nursery pudding of boiled semolina. These desserts are much, much more tempting! The first is a Russian recipe which is like a cheesecake without the crust. The original recipe says it may be eaten warm or cold, but it’s much better cold.
Cottage Cheese Bake
* 12 oz [250 g] cottage cheese * 1 egg * 1 tablespoon semolina
* 1/4 teaspoon vanilla * 2 tablespoons melted butter
* 2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar * 3 oz [about 80-90 g] raisins
* 1 tablespoon candied peel * 1 tablespoon breadcrumbs
Drain cottage cheese well and sieve. Add melted butter, egg well beaten with sugar, semolina, raisins, candied peel and vanilla. Butter an oven dish; dust with breadcrumbs. Level the mixture into it and brush the surface with butter. Bake in a fairly hot oven for 30 min till browned.
Source: Sofka Skipwith. Eat Russian. Newton Abbot, David & Charles, 1973
The next recipe, a Bengali dish, is from a modern Indian cook. Calling it “Semolina Pudding” doesn’t do it justice! It’s a standard method from Indian cuisine of making a “halwa” of a porridge-like consistency. An Indian friend once made me the same sort of thing but using wholemeal flour, with loads of butter and sugar. Incredibly delicious—but his partiality for New Zealand butter certainly explained why he put on a lot of weight while he was in the country! The picture shows the pudding after it’s been turned out from a basin, but I don’t advise doing this: spoon it directly into the serving plates and eat it while still nice and warm.
Suji er Halwa (Semolina Pudding)
“This is a very easy and quick recipe to make and very tasty as well specially if you have a sweet tooth. So here we go.”
* 100 gm suji (semolina) * 3 tablespoons sugar (or to taste)
* 100 ml warm milk * boiling water (as required)
* 1 bay leaf * 1 green cardamom * few cashew nuts
* few raisins * 1 tablespoon ghee/ butter
Dry roast the semolina until the sweet aroma comes out of the semolina and it turns light brown. Remove it from the heat and set it aside.
Heat the ghee/butter now, fry the cashew nuts and set aside.
Add the bay leaf, cardamom to the remaining butter and fry for a while; now add the roasted semolina and mix well, then add the sugar, milk and the water and keep mixing until you get a homogeneous mixture, stirring it continuously.
Now add the raisins and the fried cashew nuts and mix well.
Serve hot.
Optional: you can add little bit of orange food colour or a bit of saffron diluted in the warm milk. This will give a different dimension to the dish.
Source: Sanchita Karmakar. Nutty Cook, http://www.nuttycook.com
Here’s the Syrian version:
Ma’Mounia
* 1 teacup semolina * 3 1/2 teacups water
* 3 teacups sugar * 1 teaspoon lemon juice
* 1/4 lb [125 g] unsalted butter * 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* clotted cream or whipped cream [to garnish]
Make a syrup by boiling the water and sugar with the lemon juice, and allowing it to simmer about 10 mins, till slightly thickened.
Fry the semolina gently for 5 mins in butter. Add the syrup and stir well.
Leave the pan on the heat 2 mins longer, then remove and let it rest 20 mins.
It is now ready to eat. Serve warm, sprinkled with cinnamon.
Spread a tablespoon or so of clotted cream or thick double cream over each portion.
–Serves 4.
Source: Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1970
SEMOLINA FOR BREAD
Various kinds of bread-like dishes based on a semolina dough are traditional outside the English-speaking world. Here’s the standard “harcha” of Morocco, a kind of flatbread:
Moroccan Harcha: Semolina Pan-Fried Flatbread
“Harcha (or harsha) is a Moroccan pan-fried bread made from semolina. Although it looks a bit like an English muffin, it's more like cornbread in texture and taste. Recipes for harcha vary from family to family. This one is quite rich in that it uses all butter and milk—it is delicious, especially when hot from the griddle!
“Offer harcha for tea time or breakfast; they're best served warm with jam, cheese, or syrup made from melted butter and honey.”
* 2 cups (350 grams) fine semolina
* 3 tablespoons sugar * 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt * 1/2 cup (125 grams) soft or melted butter
* 1/2 to 3/4 cup (120 to 180 milliliters) milk
Optional: * 1/4 cup coarse semolina
1. In a mixing bowl, blend together the fine semolina, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter, and blend with your hands or a wooden spoon just until the mixture is the consistency of sand and the semolina grains have all been moistened.
2. Add 1/2 cup milk and mix until dough forms. It should be quite moist, wet almost, and easily packed into a large mound. Add additional milk if necessary to achieve this consistency.
3. Shape the dough into balls any size that you like and leave the dough to rest a few minutes.
4. Preheat a griddle or frying pan over medium-low heat. While the griddle is heating, roll the balls in the coarse semolina (if using) and flatten each ball into a disc about 1/4-inch thick, or a bit thicker if you like.
5. Cook the harcha over fairly low heat, about 5 to 10 minutes on each side, until they turn a pale to medium golden color. Flip only once, and check occasionally to be sure the harcha aren't coloring too quickly, as they need some time to cook all the way through.
6. Serve immediately with jam, cheese, or butter.
Tips:
Coating the cakes in coarse semolina before frying is optional but creates a nice appearance and texture.
Harcha stores well in the freezer. Reheat them in a pan or in a 350 degree F (180 degree C) oven for a few minutes.
Dip the harcha in syrup made from melted butter and honey. To make the syrup, heat equal portions of the butter and honey until bubbly and hot.
Recipe Variations:
Cut-out version: Instead of shaping the dough into balls, you can cut out rounds if you prefer. Leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes, sprinkle your work surface with semolina, and then press the dough flat into a large 1/4-inch-thick disc. Cut out rounds and proceed with cooking the harcha on a griddle.
Savory version: Stuff the harcha with some of your favorite savory ingredients, such as onions, herbs, olives, and cheese.
–6 to 8 servings.
Source: Christine Benlafquih, The Spruce Eats, 14 May 2020
https://www.thespruceeats.com/moroccan-harcha-semolina-pan-fried-flatread-2394807
SEMOLINA IN SAVOURY DISHES
Just like polenta, well-cooled cooked semolina can be cut up and quickly fried or used instead of pasta. I’d recommend chilling it in the fridge: if it’s not properly cold and very solid to start with, it will disintegrate when re-cooked.
This example, flavoured with turmeric and coriander leaves, is a traditional Indian recipe for little savoury patties:
Semolina Patties (Suji tikki)
* 1 cup semolina (suji) * 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
* 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
* gram [besan] or plain flour * ghee for frying
Heat 2 tablespoons ghee [or oil], add the semolina and lightly fry for three minutes. Add 2 cups water and salt and continue cooking till the mixture thickens, stirring to prevent sticking. When nearly cooked, mix in the coriander and turmeric.
Turn the mixture onto a greased plate and allow to cool [thoroughly].
Form portions of the mixture into small patties, roll in flour (plain flour or gram flour [i.e. besan, pea flour]) and fry in hot ghee till golden. Drain and serve.
Source: Jack Santa Maria. Indian Vegetarian Cookery. London, Rider, 1973
These patties could be served as snacks, or as part of a meal, either with other Indian dishes or simply with green vegetables or a salad. If liked, serve them with a spoonful of yoghurt. (You’ll note he adds the turmeric rather late: I’d sprinkle it onto the semolina as it goes into the pan and mix it in well.)
The notion of using semolina in savoury dishes seems to have disappeared from English-language cookbooks over the last 100 years or so. Before that, it does sometimes crop up. Here it is, suggested as a substitute for polenta, as early as 1845 in that great classic, Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families:
Semoulina and Polenta a L'Italienne. (Good.)
To serve instead of Maccaroni.
Throw into a quart of milk, when it is fast boiling, half a teaspoonful of salt, and then shake lightly into it five ounces of the best semoulina; stir the milk as this is added, and continue to do so from eight to ten minutes, letting the mixture boil gently during this time. It should be very thick, and great care must be take to prevent its sticking to the saucepan, which should be placed over a clear fire on a bar or trivet, but not upon the coals.
Pour the semoulina, when it is done, into a basin, or a plain mould which it will not fill by an inch or two, and let it remain some hours in a cool place, that it may become perfectly cold; it will then turn out quite solid, and like a pudding in appearance.
Cut it with a large, sharp, carving-knife, or a bit of thin wire, into half-inch slices; wash the basin into which it was poured at first, and butter it well; grate from six to eight ounces of good cheese (Parmesan, or any other), and mix with it a half-teaspoonful of cayenne, and twice as much pounded mace; clarify from two to three ounces of fresh butter, and put a small quantity into the basin, strew in a little of the cheese, moisten it with some drops of butter, and place the second slice upon it; then more cheese and butter, and continue this until all the semoulina is replaced with the basin; put plenty of cheese upon the top, add the remainder of the clarified butter, and bake the mixture for about half an hour in a gentle oven. It should be of a fine golden colour when served.
Turn it carefully into a dish, and send it instantly to table. A little rich brown gravy poured round might, to some tastes, improve it, but it is excellent without, and may be substituted for maccaroni, which it much resembles in flavour. It may be enriched by adding butter to the milk or by mixing with it a portion of cream; and it may be browned in a Dutch oven, when no other is in use.
In Italy the flour of Indian corn, which is much grown there, and eaten by all ranks of people, is used for this dish; but semoulina is perhaps rather better suited to English taste and habits of diet, from being somewhat lighter and more delicate. The maize-flour imported from Italy is sold at the foreign warehouses here under the name of polenta, though that properly speaking is, we believe, a boiled or stewed preparation of it, which forms the most common food of the poorer classes of the inhabitants of many of the Italian states. It seems to us superior in quality to the Indian corn flour grown in America.
New Milk (or milk mixed with cream), 1 quart; salt, 1/2 teaspoonful; semoulina, 5 oz.: 10 minutes. Grated Cheese, 6 to 8 oz. cayenne, 1/2 teaspoonful; mace, 1 small teaspoonful; butter, 2 to 3 oz. baked 1/2 hour, gentle oven.
Obs.—A plain mould can be used instead of a basin.
Source: Eliza Acton. Modern Cookery for Private Families. Facsimile 1845 ed. East Sussex, Southover Press, 1993, in Food Timeline,
Fifty years later Mrs Wicken picks up the idea and brings it to the colonies, combining the polenta-like semolina dish with an Italian-style meat and tomato stew. The instructions are somewhat laborious but it's really a Bolognese-type sauce with the cooled, cooked semolina squares taking the place of pasta.
Roman Ragout
* 1 1/2 lbs. Gravy Beef * 2 oz. Fat Bacon * 2 oz. Onion
* 1 pint Milk * 3 Tomatoes * 1/2 pint Gravy
* 1 1/2 oz. Semolina * 1 oz. Dry Cheese
Total Cost—1s. Time—Three Hours
Mince the onion and bacon very fine indeed, put them into a saucepan and fry a good brown, then add half the gravy, and stir until a sort of half glaze. Rub the tomatoes through a sieve and stir them in with the rest of the gravy, bring to the boil. Cut the meat into strips and put it in with a little salt and pepper, and simmer very gently for about three hours.
While it is cooking put the milk on to boil, mix the semolina with a little cold milk, and stir it in; cook it until the spoon will come out quite clean, then turn it on to a dish till cold.
Cut it into squares and lay some in a deep dish, sprinkle with grated cheese, then more semolina and more cheese. Pour over this some of the gravy in which the meat is cooking, and put it in the oven to get hot.
Dish up the meat and pour the sauce over it.
Send the two dishes to table together, quite hot.
Source: Philip E. Muskett and Mrs H. Wicken. The Art of Living in Australia, by Philip E. Muskett; Together With Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken. London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, [1894]
Semolina with vegetables
It’s again Indian cuisine which offers us semolina used in a savoury dish in quite a different way: as an ingredient in a batter.
Kurkuri Bhindi - Crispy Fried Okra
“Kurkuri Bhindi, called Kurmure Bhendi Bhaja in Bengali, is sliced okra coated in spices and fried until crunchy. This crispy fried okra is so good, you cannot stop eating it!”
* 10.5 oz [300 g] okra [lady’s fingers] * 1/2 cup rice flour
* 1/4 cup semolina (sooji/rava) fine
* 1 tbsp nigella seeds (kalonji) * 1/2 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
* 1/2 tsp ground turmeric (haldi powder)
* 1/2 tsp Kashmiri red chili powder or to taste
* 1 tsp salt or to taste * 1 cup water * oil for deep-frying
Garnish: * lime wedges
1. Wash okra and then pat dry with a kitchen towel. Using a sharp knife, slice the okra lengthwise in half or quarters depending on their size.
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the flour, semolina, nigella seeds, fennel seeds, salt, turmeric and chili powder. Whisk to combine and then [gradually] pour in the water to make a thick batter.
3. Add the sliced okra to the batter and toss it around to coat all the slides. Set aside for 15 minutes.
For Deep-frying:
1. When ready to deep-fry, place a heavy bottomed pan over medium-high heat. Pour in the oil to a depth of about 1 inch [2-1/2 cm]. Have a plate layered with a kitchen towel ready.
2. Depending on how big your pan is, add the okra slices carefully, without overcrowding the pan. Tossing and turning, fry the okra for about 5 minutes or until golden brown in color.
Remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and place on the kitchen towel. The okra tastes best when served immediately.
Source: Kankana Saxena. Taste of Eastern India Cookbook. Page Street Publishing Co., 2018, in Piping Pot Curry, November 29, 2018
You’ll see that “deep” frying in Indian cookery is not very deep: only about 2 1/2 cm of oil is used. The recipe is really a semolina version of the common Indian pakora, which are made with a besan flour batter. Typically, such batters do not entirely coat the vegetables, as in the photo. You could use this batter with lots of other vegetables: perhaps green beans, broccoli or cauliflower, for example. Yummy!
