Socca

[alvin]

Hate to keep botherin you, GH, but can't find your socca recipe. The recipe I found by a search included 2 parts gram to 3 parts water + olive oil. Just omit the oil or is there a secret ingredient?

[Sierra]

on August 10, 2006.

"This is traditional in European and Mediterranean countries and made with chick pea flour. . .if you use some other flour cuz you can't find chick pea flour, I don't know what will happen (the universe could unravel, possibly????), so if you find yourself tempted to try with other flours...well, groundhog won't be held responsible for whatever happens next...anyway, I buy chickpea flour from an Indian store; it's called gram flour, as opposed to graham flour, which is, of course wheat, not chickpeas. Okay? (Tweaked by groundhog from net surfing and seeing many soca recipes all over the place).

Socca Bread, groundhog style:

1 cup chickpea flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1TBSP. onion powder
1 tsp. ground dried rosemary
1 cup water
Several spoonsfuls of tomato sauce with Italian spices, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, or some type tomato-marinara sauce.

I preheat my oven to 400 degrees. Measure out the chickpea flour into a mixing bowl and add the salt, pepper, onion powder, & rosemary. Mix in the cup of water...whisk or beat by hand thoroughly, because the chickpea flour has a tendency to stay lumpy and resist dissolving. This batter should have the consistency of heavy cream.

I spritz my largest cast iron skilled with Pam at this point...spread a thin layer (this entire recipe makes a thin layer in my skillet) over bottom of pan...then bake at 400 until it begins to set up...at that point, I remove it from the oven and spoon on the tomato sauce...just as you would with pizza. Return to oven and bake until the tomato sauce cooks into the socca and sort of glazes down into the surface...sorry...I am NOT a clock-watcher and don't know how long this takes...but it cooks pretty quickly.

For socca pizza...when I add my tomato sauce, I also throw on pizza toppings: sliced bell peppers, diced onions, sliced artichoke hearts, mushrooms, black olives, etc., whatever kind of pizza toppings you like...I sprinkle the top with dried basil and bake until the tomato sauce is glazed through the socca. Takes a little bit longer to bake if you're making pizza with it."

[alvin]

Thanks, Sierra. Now to run down the gram flour.

[groundhogg]

Thanks, Sierra.

Alvin, go to an Indian grocery store, or find the Indian section of a grocery store to find the gram flour.

Let me know how it turns out for ya!