Rava
Also known as: sooji, semolina, suji
What Rava is
Semolina — rava or sooji — the wheat middlings that cook into upma in ten minutes and halwa in fifteen. The bag to know apart is idli rava, which shares the name but is cracked rice, not wheat, and not interchangeable.
The coarse particles separated out during wheat milling — harder and larger than flour, smaller than cracked wheat. Indian shops grade it two ways for the cook: Bombay rava, medium-coarse and cream-coloured, for savoury cooking, and fine chiroti rava for sweets. Idli rava is a different product entirely — coarsely cracked rice used to bulk out idli batter — and sits a shelf away from the wheat rava.
Taste and texture
Toasted and wheaty, with a granular body that stays distinct in upma and sets soft-sandy in halwa. Cooked right it is light and separate; under-roasted or under-cooked it clumps into paste.
Forms to buy
- Bombay rava (medium) — The standard bag; for upma, rava dosa and savoury dishes.
- Chiroti rava (fine) — Fine-milled; for halwa, laddoo and sweets.
- Idli rava — Cracked rice for idli batter — a different grain, listed here so it is not mistaken.
How to cook it
Dry-roast rava in a pan until it smells faintly nutty, cool it, and store it — pre-roasting is the trick that keeps upma from turning lumpy. For upma, crackle mustard seed and curry leaves, soften onion, add vegetables and about 2½–3 cups water per cup of rava, salt it, then rain in the rava and stir until it drinks the water. For halwa, toast rava in ghee, add hot water or milk, then sugar. Rava dosa folds a thin rava-and-rice-flour batter into a lacy crepe.
Buying note
Typically ¥300–¥500 per kilogram. The granules should be free-flowing and cream-pale; a caked or dusty bag has taken on moisture. Check the label against the three grades above before assuming which one you are holding.