Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes, but the flour, milk, and butter part of pancakes doesn’t like me. So a recipe for Italian savoury pancakes sounded heavenly. This is basically a pancake topped with slow-cooked onions and roasted tomatoes. It’s simple comfort food, and the only investment is the time it takes to find chickpea flour (any bulk store or natural health food store, or Indian grocer). Fortunately I have it in abundance, and since you probably won’t use it as much as I do (as a gluten-free flour substitute) it’s something that, once bought, you’ll have on hand for every subsequent time you ant to make this dish. And you will want to make this dish again.
Socca – who knew the Italians used chickpea flour? Not I. The only reason I had chickpea flour in the first place was because I’d stumbled upon it at a South Asian grocery store and figured I’d get some because it was bound to show up eventually in one of my Indian recipes. It’s often used for deep-fried appetizers, imparting a nutty flavour to the spiced potatoes or lentils or whatever is lucky enough to be fried. So I actually ended up using toasted chickpea flour – or gram flour – which may be different from the chickpea flour called for in Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook “Plenty” from which my recipe for socca came. The only difference is my toasted flour is better (toasted = better = more flavour). Regular chickpea flour can be found at almost any bulk store, and gram flour or toasted chickpea flour can be found at most South Asian grocery stores.
2 lbs of onions and a carton of cherry tomatoes can be found anywhere. A little bit of thyme, salt, and pepper, and you’re set. Sweet, sweet comfort.
Italian Socca Tart with Caramelized Onions and Roasted Tomatoes
2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half. Or use a mix of cherries and cocktail and off-the-vine tomatoes or whatever you have – slice the cocktails (medium sized tomatoes) in half, and cut the large tomatoes to the same size as the cocktail tomato halves, and use only the sides with skin attached since they need to be roasted skin-side down. This way they won’t just fall apart and burn when you roast them.
5 1/2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 3/4 lbs onions, sliced in thin strips (or a small bag. Really the exact weight doesn’t matter. It just all needs to fit in your skillet)
2 tbsp thyme
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar (or lemon juice)
1 3/4 cups chickpea flour (toasted chickpea flour is even better)
2 cups water
2 egg whites
vegetable oil for cooking (or other high heat oil)
Directions:
1. First, roast the tomatoes by preheating the oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit and placing the tomato halves skin side-down on a baking sheet. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and drizzle with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Put them in the oven for 25 minutes or until they’ve started to fall apart and release their juices. Remove from the oven and place in a dish with a cover to keep sort of warm. They don’t need to stay hot, but the less heat you waste the better, since you may want to reheat them at the end of the recipe.
Why I love roasting tomatoes: It removes some excess water and concentrates the flavour. Translation: Yum…
2. Increase the oven temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit when you take out the tomatoes (in preparation for the chickpea pancakes in step 10. If you’re not going to get to that step for awhile, turn off the oven and turn it on again later.
3. Then my favourite part – the onions. Take 3 tbsp of olive oil and heat it on medium-high in a very large skillet. When hot, add the onion slices, thyme and some salt and pepper and stir and cook for one minute before reducing the heat to low and stirring and cooking for about 20 minutes more. You don’t need to be too intense about how often you stir. It’s not risotto, for goodness sake. Walk away. Just don’t forget about them. The onions should be completely soft. No crunch or excess chew – just sweet, fall-apart deliciousness. If they’re not at that stage after 20 minutes, keep cooking them. If they start to stick add a little water. They should be golden brown from cooking the first minute on high before lowering the heat, but you don’t want them to burn.
4. When they’re satisfactorily soft take the onions off the heat and add the white wine vinegar (or lemon juice. I like the lemon juice better as it’s safer for people avoiding sugars and vinegars for dietary reasons. I don’t know anyone who can’t have lemon juice). Add more salt and pepper as needed. Cover to keep warm.
5. Make the socca batter by combining the chickpea flour, water, remaining 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, 3/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper in a medium bowl. Mix well to get the lumps out (a whisk is a good choice). Then, in a second bowl beat the egg whites to soft peaks (think “rolling plains”, not “pointy peaks”. If you look at your egg whites and think, “I wouldn’t want to climb those mountains,” then they’re too stiff and you should to start again with new whites. If you’re a rock climber and look at the egg whites and think, “Looks like fun!” also toss the whites…Well, actually, I don’t think stiff peaks are the end of the world. Lots of other pancake recipes call for them to be stiff. AND while it is better to beat with a whisk for more stable egg whites, I also promote the use of a hand mixer because whisking by hand is very tiring. Just beat on the lowest possible speed so you don’t incorporate too much air too quickly, leaving the egg whites prone to deflating).
6. Fold the egg whites into the batter. Folding is hard. I kind of hate when a recipe says that, but it’s a technique you’ll need to learn if you want to eat things that are light and fluffy. So here you go:
<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/0Yie5V37E1w” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>Feel free to skip ahead to the important part. The presenter is an awfully jovial fellow, though.
7. Now increase the oven temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit if you haven’t already done so
8. So the way this is going to work is that you take a small frying pan (approximately 6″ in diameter, but who’s counting?) to make the pancakes, and then you put them on two parchment paper-lined baking sheets (brush the parchment with a little oil) to finish them in the oven. Brush the small frying pan with vegetable oil (or other high-heat oil – I used coconut oil) too while you’re at it, and put it on high heat for 2 minutes.
9. Now reduce the heat to medium-high and pour in 1/4 of the pancake batter. When air bubbles appear (after 2 minutes) carefully flip the pancake over. It’ll probably stick and you’ll probably swear at me, but it’s the recipe’s fault. That’s why a non-stick skillet is so nice. My poor pancakes basically got massacred. Usually the second batch is better…
Socca with air bubbles
10. Cook on the second side for 1 minute, then transfer the pancake to the parchment-lined baking sheets but don’t put them in the oven yet. Repeat pancake making 3 more times, until the batter is used up. When the 4 pancakes are made and placed on the baking sheets, put the sheets in the oven for 5 minutes.
11. To assemble, completely smother the pancakes with onions and then place tomatoes on top (the pancakes are still on the baking sheets at this point). Put the pancakes back in the oven for 4 minutes to warm the onions and tomatoes, or just serve at room temperature. I kind of like it that way since the pancake is hot and you don’t burn yourself on the onions and tomatoes, so you can really taste them. You can serve these with crème fraiche or thick plain yogurt on the side. They’re a perfect appetizer, cut into pizza-like slices, or next time make them smaller like actual pancakes and serve them as individual pancakes.
Pancake-sized socca, instead of mini-pizza-sized socca
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