February 28, 2013 - 5:42am
What to do with durum semolina flour
Hey, All,
OK so in my last flour delivery, I got a 20kg bag of Durum Semolina flour by mistake. My supplier said to just keep it at no charge. Fine, but what the heck am I going to do with it???
I only use this stuff to make pasta at home. 20Kg is waaaay more pasta than I want or need. I was about to just chuck it out when I thought of you guys/girls. Any ideas??
Thanks and Cheers
Share
20kg durum flour, or fine semolina? both can be used in bread, but each behaves differently. Durum flour makes excellent bread, especially pugliese and altamura, featured on this site by dabrownman, and Franko. If you have "Bread" by jefferey Hamelman, there are a couple of recipes that call for Durum flour.
Fine Semolina flour is different thing, it needs time to soak water due to its grittiness. It also behaves differently when mixed.
just autolyse it for longer time, say 1 hour. I prepare durum bread preferrably with semolina flour rather than fine durum flour.
Is your semolina very yellow? what's the brand?
I could take it off your hands... just used the last of my fine durum flour yesterday, must get some more. Like you, I use it for pasta, but also for gnocchi (along with yellow potatoes, no egg), and for bread. Yesterday I made a not-very-sour sourdough with 70% fine durum flour, it was marvelous and is now all gone- there aren't many breads that my family will finish in one meal. Finally, if you make cakes at all, the fine durum can be used to wonderful effect in cake baking, check out recipes for semolina cake (many are orange or lemon flavored, and some feature olive oil). How about lemon-semolina muffins with blueberries?
If you have the coarse milled semolina, you can cook it stovetop with whole milk into a wet paste, similar to polenta. Takes about 10 minutes of stirring, then add a bit of butter and parmesano- wonderful stuff as is, or you can gratinee it: whisk in a few egg yolks, spread it thin, cool it, and cut it into tiles (I use a glass dipped in water), spread them with butter/parm, layer two deep and bake just long enough to brown the top, maybe 20-30 minutes. That is Marcella Hazan's Roman Semolina Gnocchi, and it will impress the heck out of just about anyone with a whit of appreciation for Italian comfort food.
Being of middle-eastern decent, I know of many cakes that use semolina... ex: basboosa, my fav.
I gave a quick look around and found some recipes that call for semolina, but not the flour kind
Cheers
Italian old style SD breads like Altamura. The color of the crust and crumb is amazing and the taste is very sophisticated. I learned Altamura from David Snyder's post on it - where else! You can use 50% of the flour as durum and the rest AP if it is has a high protein. Especially good with soakers and sprouts using Kamut a proprietary Durum variety. It also makes a fine polenta as well.
Happy baking
Since my wife's family is from Pugliese and Altamura, I just caught a lot of flack from the mother-in-law!!!!! Fortunately, it was on the phone so I didn't get a smack upside the head, but I guess that's coming.
She's actually coming over to the shop to teach me how to make authentic Altamura bread (well, at least the way she made it as a kid and young adult)
I'll let everyone know how it turns out if I survive the experience
Cheers
David Snyders's Pugliese too...... but it doesn't have any durum in it..... until you throw some in.! How great it must be to have a MIL to teach you how Altamura it was really done when she was a kid.
Make sure to post her recipe, if she will let you, so we all can make real Altamura going forward. I bet she has all kinds of other ideas for your durum too! I'm guessing you will be selling Altamura pretty soon - its a great bread .
Happy baking
... both my mother and mother-in-law use the same recipe notation, (aka Nonna Notation) you know, "Add the flour, enough but not too much. Then some salt... like this, not more or a little less, but not too much. "
Not exactly the best way to convey a formula, and definitely tougher to cost out, but we'll try.
Cheers
... both my mother and mother-in-law use the same recipe notation, (aka Nonna Notation) you know, "Add the flour, enough but not too much. Then some salt... like this, not more or a little less, but not too much. "
Not exactly the best way to convey a formula, and definitely tougher to cost out, but we'll try.
Cheers
Actually, my second iteration of Pane Pugliese had 25% durum flour. (See Pugliese Capriccioso, Take 2 | The Fresh Loaf) This weekend, I plan on making it with 50% durum. Watch for my posting. I know I'll be watching for yours, expecting a complete formula and embedded video of your MIL in action! ;-)
Happy baking!
David