This goes by a number of names and several shapes–socca, farinata di ceci, foccacia di ceci–depending where you eat it.
It’s street food eaten on the move.
There’s a recipe for it in my book, Delicious Dishes for Diabetics.
But here is a slightly different version–I’ll call it chickpea bread.
I’m going to buy some spring onions in the market tomorrow–well it is Spring though it’s difficult to credit–grill them as in A lovely mess of spring onions and spread them over the bread.
The sun is forecast tomorrow and we’ll eat it sitting down!
Joy!
1 pint/580ml sparkling water
8oz chickpea flour–(aka gram, garbonzo flour and gluten and wheat free)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp olive oil
half a small red onion–sliced fine
1 tbsp rosemary spears or more
salt and pepper
- Pour the water into a large glass bowl.
- Shake the flour and baking powder into the bowl through a sieve and stir it in.
- Add the salt.
- Add the olive oil and stir thoroughly.
- Cover the bowl and leave it to settle for a couple of hours.
- When you are ready to bake the “bread”, stir in the onion and the rosemary.
- Heat the oven to 200C/400F.
- Oil an oven tray and pour in the contents of the bowl, taking care it doesn’t slop over the sides.
- Gingerly lift it onto the top shelf of the oven and let it cook for 35 to 40 minutes.
- It should have browned some.
Ease it out of the tray onto a serving board for easier slicing
and grind some pepper over it.
(Good sautéed in olive oil the next day and eaten with a simple salad or try it topped with a fried or poached egg.)
Robin Ellis 
Dear Robin, I am writing to thank you for the lovely recipe you sent.I’ll try it as soon as posible Regards Mirco
This looks really interesting. I’ve only recently tracked down chickpea flour, It looks as if I now have a chance to use it. Thank you.
Bread…and gluten free. Thanks so much Robin. Love the rosemary…
Greetings from Florida…
Since I can’t find chickpea flour, I will take a try at grinding my own. Thanks for thinking of us GF folks. This would be lovely beside the stuffed red peppers about to come out of the the oven this evening. Next time, perhaps.
How nice to see another GF out there. Chickpea flour in the US is Garbonza flour. It can be found in health food stores. Of course, that is assuming you are in the US. I apologize for the egotistical response if that is not the case.
Greetings from Florida
Yikes–my 1st thought when I read the title of your post was that something terrible had happened to Chickpea at his new home!! 🙂 I’m relieved!!
Uhhmmm Robin, what a delicious dish! I never cook this, I will try with your recipe. In general I use eat it in Liguria or in South Toscana, like “street-food”. In Liguria is called “focaccia di ceci” or “farinata di ceci”. In Toscana ceci means “good-old-food” and now is very popular in a lots of restaurants or trattorias. Lucca has her “farinata di ceci” and it’s a soup, between Livorno and Grosseto (South-Sea’s Area) have their “cecina” just like your dish! Thank you again Robin, have a nice week!!
Hola: Me encantó la receta….!!!!!
Se ve deliciosa…. mmmmmm!!!! voy hacerla.
gracias..
Hola: Me encantó la receta….se ve deliciosa …ummmmmm.!!!!!
voy a prepararla…. gracias…
saludos…
I would really like to try this, Robin, but need to make a smaller quantity. Can you tell me roughly please the size of that tray you used?
21cm by 31cm is the size I used. It seems to be about right. You could experiment with different sizes and the same volume.
Mine is “settling” right now and I went to the garden for some rosemary. Hope Isabelle and Aidan like it tonight (ages 8 and 6) but I am pretty sure I will. Looking through some of the recipes in the book today and have a few that I am going to try, Hope I can make it for one of your cooking classes one of these days. In the meantime, enjoying the book and look forward to the next one.
Thank you Debbie–hope Isabelle and Aidan like it!
I loved it and so did they, along with their dad, my son, Jason. We dipped in a little olive oil with a garlic and herb melange that I mix up myself. It was also good this morning. I will definitely make it over and over again. Your recipe collection is amazing. I have the signed book sitting about and people ask if I am diabetic. No, but it runs in the family and this is the best way to eat. With your help and great advice, maybe we can keep that problem at bay. Thanks, again! Who would think that so many Poldark fans are now your food fans!!
The garlic and herb dip sounds delicious–we’ll try it tomorrow–thanks!
Hi Robin,
I looked everywhere for such “bread” recipe (glutenfree & yeastfree). Thank you for sharing. I just want to check the right mass: 8 oz should be approx 250 g, am I right?
greetings from Croatia
Yes–pretty much.
Hoping to get to try this tonight – when you write “8 oz chickpea flour” I assume you mean weight, and not volume? Any idea what volume that is (to a metric-challenged Yank)?
Yes 8oz weight–ie a half pound.I just weighed a cup and it was about 4 oz so 8oz would be a little more than 2 cups.It’s late here though and someone should double check that!
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