How to Choose Between Flour, Daliya, Semolina, Pasta and Vermicelli

How to actually decide

• Making roti or paratha? You need flour, the most finely milled and widely used of the five forms.
• Want a coarser, more textured breakfast, savoury or sweet? You need daliya, cracked rather than ground.
• Making upma, halwa or rava idli? You need semolina, the coarse middlings sieved during milling.
• Cooking an Indian style pasta dish? You need pasta, formed and dried or cooked fresh from flour or semolina.
• Making sevai or seviyan kheer? You need vermicelli, thin strands usually sold pre-roasted.
• Not sure which dish you are making yet? Flour is the safest general purpose starting point of the five.

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Choosing wheat forms questions

Do all five forms come from the same wheat variety?

They can, any of our three wheat landraces can be processed into any of these five forms.

Which form should I buy if I only want one?

Flour, since it covers the widest range of everyday dishes on its own.

Can one form substitute for another in a recipe?

Rarely well, each is processed differently and suits a genuinely different texture and cooking method.

Is there a wrong form to buy for a beginner?

No, though starting with flour and adding the others as your cooking expands is a practical approach.