Socca are chickpea flour (gram flour) pancakes from Nice in France. You can make one large pancake and slice it to serve as a snack but I discovered them recently used more like a soft taco as a wrap.
I really like tacos but it’s quite hard to get the smaller tortillas that are used for soft tacos so this makes a really good alternative. The taste is a bit different but good.
These pancakes have another couple of accidental benefits: They don’t need egg because gram flour is much ‘stickier’ than wheat flour so easy to make vegan (the recipe below includes cheese but you can skip that). Also, gram flour doesn’t contain gluten so they are naturally gluten free.
I did them for lunch yesterday with leftover vegan ranch sauce (a cashew nut based recipe from Bosh!) and sticks of courgette, sliced red pepper and onion, fried together with some fajita seasoning.
This recipe only makes a small quantity: six small pancakes which will feed two for lunch, but you can multiply it up. I think they would freeze very well once cooked and you could just reheat them briefly in a dry frying pan but I haven’t tried that yet.
Socca
Ingredients
- 100 g gram (chickpea) flour
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 20 g Italian-style hard cheese, grated
- 1 tbsp olive oil plus extra for frying
- 150 ml water
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- Mix together the flour, cumin, cheese and salt in a bowl.
- Whisk in the olive oil and water. You might need a touch more or less water – you want a consistency that will spread out into a pancake when you put it in the pan.
- Cover and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Heat a small frying pan over a medium heat and add a tiny amount of olive oil, just enough to stop them sticking.
- Each pancake uses about 3 tbsp batter. I used a 1/4 cup measure (60 ml) not quite filled to scoop the batter into the pan. Spread it out with the back of a spoon if it doesn't spread itself and fry for 1-2 minutes. Flip it over and cook for another minute.
- Keep the pancakes warm in the oven while you cook the rest of them and serve warm with whatever you like. Look to taco recipes or menus for inspiration (as long as you don't mind mixing your cultures) 🙂