Socca

Socca
Category:	French recipes
Servings:	16 (or 8, twice!)
Time:	15-30 minutes
Difficulty:

| Cuisine of France | Cuisine of Italy

Socca (French), Torta di ceci or Farinata (Italian).

See also: Calentita

Ingredients

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

Equipment

Apart from having the usual kitchen equipment and a good oven, you will need 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 – super hot, around 300°C / 570°F is traditional, but 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 the ingredients together well, ensuring there are no lumps. This should make a very thin batter, easy to pour.
3. Once the oven is up to temperature, pour some of the batter into the 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 50cm 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.