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.
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
Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.
-
Whisk the gram flour and water together until completely smooth, then whisk in 2 tablespoons of the oil and the salt.
-
Rest the batter at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, and up to 4 hours. Unrested batter tastes raw and chalky.
-
Heat the oven to its maximum, with a heavy 25 cm cast-iron pan inside, for 15 minutes.
-
Skim any foam off the batter and stir in the rosemary.
-
Take the pan out, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil and swirl — it should shimmer immediately.
-
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.
-
Grind the pepper over generously, cut into rough wedges and serve hot with lemon and rocket.
Related guides: Prep, cook and total time · Pan and tin size.
Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.
Keep an Eye on These
- The pan must be preheated empty and properly hot. This is the whole recipe.
- Gram flour foams as it rests; skimming it gives a smoother top.
- 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.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
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 .