‘Cooking is a language that expresses harmony, creativity, happiness, beauty, poetry, complexity, magic, humour and provocation’ – Ferran Adria
I recently went to an amazing Vegan restaurant in NYC called XYST created by Matthew Kenney and had this dish for brunch topped with an amazing avocado salad. Mr B loves chickpea and avocado and saw I thought I would recreate it for him, with a few watermelon radishes on top for a pop of colour and crunch. Ottolenghi has a similar recipe to which he tops the pancake with sautéed onions and tomatoes.
This pancake is made all over the world. In Italy is called Farinata, spiced with rosemary and sold to people on the streets as a snack. It is called Socca in France and usually dusted with cumin. It is also used in middle eastern and Indian cooking, where the flour is called Besan. The reason this is such a popular dish all over the world is that it is cheap, simple, gluten free and makes a great base to pretty much anything.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups chickpea flour
- 2 cups warm water
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2 tbsp. oil and extra for frying
Method
- Pour the water into a bowl
- Slowly sieve the flour into the bowl and whisk until it forms a thick batter
- Let sit for an hour
- Stir in salt and oil
- Heat a 9-inch frying/cast iron pan
- Add a little oil to the pan
- Pour a thin amount of batter into the pan
- Wait until bubbles appear and then flip
- Keep warm in an oven
