11.10.17

SEMOLINA AND FARINA - GRÍZ

I was surprised when I found out a relative of mine living on Long Island used to have her parents send bits of GRÍZ in every letter which she painstakingly collected. She wasn’t alone though; apparently there are Hungarian immigrants who settled down to the fact that GRÍZ was an unobtainable commodity in North America. I messaged her to ask her Italian mother in-law for semolina. Italians use them in desserts and to make pasta. In the West semolina and farina are porridge foods. In Hungarian cuisine GRÍZ or as sometimes called Búzadara is a staple item with a wide range of applications. I use semolina and farina interchangeably as they are all good replacements for GRÍZ.  

There are differences of course, both in texture and in colour. Some are fine and some are coarsely ground. Some are yellow and some are almost white. Some may contain a bit of bran and germ. Some are finely sifted and are uniform. But they all work as far as I am concerned.

Both semolina and farina come from the endosperm of the wheat kernel.

  • Semolina is made from durum wheat.

  • Farina is made from hard wheat.

Farina may also be labeled as wheatlets.
Cream of Wheat is a brand name for farina and is a registered trademark. So wheatlets and Cream of Wheat are both Farina.

Whatever you use, beware of instant products. These generally won’t taste all that good, contain a lot of chemicals, besides they were designed for a specific purpose and most likely won’t work in your recipe. Which is a problem; because different stores carry different brands plus they keep changing them. So weather you get semolina, farina, wheatlets or a box of Cream of Wheat, look for the least processed version. When all else fails, look for semolina or farina in a Health Food Store. They will be unprocessed and either packaged or in bulk bins. But they all will work in Tejbegríz, Gríznokedli and Túrógombóc
Different versions of semolina and farina

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It began with posting a few recipes on line for the family. "zsuzsa is in the kitchen" has more than 1000 Hungarian and International recipes. What started out as a private project turned into a well visited blog. The number of visitors long passed the two million mark. I organized the recipes into an on-line cookbook. On top of the page click on "ZSUZSA'S COOKBOOK". From there click on any of the chapters to access the recipes. For the archive just scroll to the bottom of the page. I am not profiting from my blog, so visitors are not harassed with advertising or flashy gadgets. The recipes are not broken up with photos at every step. Where needed the photos are placed following the recipe. Feel free to cut and paste my recipes for your own use. Publication is permitted as long as it is in your own words and with your own photographs. However, I would ask you for an acknowledgement and link-back to my blog. Happy cooking!