Cookbook:Socca (Italian Chickpea Flatbread)

Socca (Italian Chickpea Flatbread)
Category	French recipes
Servings	16 (or 8, twice!)
Time	15–30 minutes
Difficulty

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Socca (French), torta di ceci or farinata (Italian), is a type of flatbread made from chickpea flour.

See also: Calentita

Ingredients

• 300 g (2 cups) chickpea flour
• 500 ml (2 cups) water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• Black pepper to taste; 2–3 decent grinds of a grinder should do

Equipment

• Oven
• Something to cook the socca on; traditionally, a 50cm (20 inch) copper plaque is used as it spreads the heat evenly to all parts of the socca, but a good cast iron pan will suffice if preheated in the oven first.

Procedure

1. Heat oven as high as it can go—around 300°C / 570°F is traditional, but do whatever your oven can manage that gets close to this. If using a cast-iron pan, get it into the oven at the start so that it is hot when the batter goes into it.
2. Whisk all the ingredients together well, ensuring there are no lumps. This should make a very thin, easy-to-pour batter.
3. Once the oven is up to temperature, pour some of the batter into the hot pan or onto the plaque, and put into the oven for 8–9 minutes at 300°C / 570°F, or 13–15 minutes at 250°C / 480°F. With a 50 cm plaque or pan, cook half the batter at a time—the batter should cover the plaque or pan very thinly.
4. Remove from the oven and cut into triangular wedges. Serve hot.
5. Repeat for the rest of the batter.