French · Appetizers

Chickpea Socca

A single thick pancake of chickpea flour, olive oil and water, baked fierce in a heavy pan until the edges blister — street food from Nice, and naturally free of gluten, dairy and sugar.

25 min prep and cooking plus 30 min to 4 hr resting 55 min to 4 hr 25 min start to finish Serves 4 servings Easy
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Chickpea Socca

Photograph credit: Farinata di zucca di Sestri Ponente 01 by Alessio Sbarbaro User_talk:Yoggysot · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence

The Method for Chickpea Socca

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  1. Whisk the gram flour and water together until completely smooth, then whisk in 2 tablespoons of the oil and the salt.

  2. Rest the batter at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, and up to 4 hours. Unrested batter tastes raw and chalky.

  3. Heat the oven to its maximum, with a heavy 25 cm cast-iron pan inside, for 15 minutes.

  4. Skim any foam off the batter and stir in the rosemary.

  5. Take the pan out, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and swirl — it should shimmer immediately.

  6. Pour the batter in; it will sizzle at the edges at once. Return it to the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until set and blistered brown in patches.

  7. Grind the pepper over generously, cut into rough wedges and serve hot with lemon and rocket.

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Keep an Eye on These

  1. The pan must be preheated empty and properly hot. This is the whole recipe.
  2. Gram flour foams as it rests; skimming it gives a smoother top.
  3. Socca is eaten hot and torn, not cooled and sliced. It goes leathery within twenty minutes.

About This Recipe

Socca is three ingredients and one variable: heat. The batter has to rest so the chickpea flour hydrates fully, and the pan has to be genuinely smoking before the batter goes in, because the blistered top and the crisp underside both come from the shock. A tepid pan gives a pale, damp pancake and no amount of extra time recovers it.

What to Serve It With

A cold glass of rosé · Olives and anchovies · Ratatouille alongside

Keeping Chickpea Socca

Best within the hour. It refrigerates 2 days and reheats in a dry pan over high heat for 2 minutes a side, which brings back some of the crispness but not the blister.

Quick Answers

How long does Chickpea Socca take to make?

10 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes to 4 hours of resting, so allow 55 minutes to 4 hours 25 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 4.

What's in a Serving

Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.

289Calories
9gProtein
25gCarbs
17gFat
5gFibre
5gSugar
610mgSodium

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .