Chickpea Heaven

I first had socca, a local street-food in Nice, in 1975 . Chickpea flour made up the batter, cooked on top of an oiled, very large (say 75cm) diameter slightly convex surface like a traditional French crepe. The batter, swirled over the very hot cooking surface (was it wood-fired? can't recall) cooked very quickly. Rolled up and served in a newspaper cone, the socca practically fell apart, the oily deliciousness of salt and crunch and soft was unforgettable.

Fast forward over 30 yrs, now avoiding gluten and always looking for a new carbohydrate, I suddenly remember socca. And hummus! Here they are:

Socca 

Chickpea (aka gram) flour and water in equal proportions, add additional water to thin to a single cream consistancy (US=1 C flour to 1 C+2 T water; UK 300 gr flour to 1 lt water), sea salt, olive oil (2-3 good splashes).

Whisk together and let sit for two hours (some recipes suggest letting it rest overnight to let it ferment a bit so the pancakes rise a bit). Heat a shallow sautee pan and once hot, again a splash of oil, letting it get to smoking hot. About a good sized coffee cup (US 3/4 c) of batter, swirl quickly around the pan to spread, tilting and tipping so batter covers the bottom of the pan.

Now comes a choice: the first time I made this I followed one recipe which called for the pan to go under the grill after the bottom of the pancake was well cooked. This produced an extremely brown and crunchy edge which never blackened and burnt. All delicious. The second trial, as above, was simply flipped in the sautee pan (I just forgot about the grill bit); the second side did not brown as much as the first but I put that down to not adding more oil to the pan.

Served above as a pizza base, using fresh spinach, sliced tomatoes, a mild feta-style local Turkish cheese (panyir), and crumbled kofta (ok, hamburger with kofta seasonings), thrown under the grill again until the cheese softened, the spinach wilted and the tomatoes warmed.

Another serving suggestion (next day's lunch, actually) of just the slightly salty panyir with red pepper flakes:

or, more balanced, with tomatoes and rocket, more cheese and olives on the side:

Yield: 1 c flour = 2 regular and 1 tiny pancakes; 2 c flour = 4 pancakes

Another recipe from the Metro calls this Farinata de ceci (an Italian dish) and bakes it in a cake tin; aka cecina, torta de ceci, all producing a pancake much thicker than mine.

Hummus

Soak dried chickpeas overnight or 24 hours. Pick out any ugly ones, and cook in plenty of water, adding a chicken stock cube, peppercorns and 2 bay leaves. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer for an hour, then check to see if they are tender. When done to your taste, drain and rinse. Use a food processor to whiz to a coarse puree. Add olive oil as needed to prevent the puree sticking and heating up due to being too thick. After all the chickpeas have been reduced to the desired consistancy, turn out into a large mixing bowl and add more olive oil, lemon juice (I used 2 lemons for 2 c chickpeas), a little water to get to the runniness you prefer, a few pinches of  ground cumin. Before cleaning the food processor, throw in 2-3 cloves of fresh garlic (remember to take out any central green sprouting bits) and whiz to fine mince. Add to the hummus and blend well. Turn out into a pretty serving bowl, spread the top smooth, drizzle a bit of olive oil over it and sprinkle some crushed red pepper over all as in photo above.

Remember that the garlic flavour will grow stronger over time.