French Socca bread and it's naturally gluten free!

I was going through one of those days when I had just blown another $5 on a packet of brown rice flour tortillas that tasted alot like the last $5 brand I didn't like. These too tasted blah and the texture was akin to very flimsy cardboard. What was I going to do for a flatbread or tortilla shells when I want something larger then the corn ones we use for fajitas? The search was on. I stumbled upon davidlebovitz.com where this easy Socca recipe lives. I found a few other sites which raved about these little French bites commonly sold on the streets of France. Once I tried them they kinda reminded me of Vietnamese crepes which is a whole other post which will come soon.

I looked in the larder and sure enough I had all the ingredients and set about creating my very own Socca. Since that time I've experimented with add-in's like minced onions, scallions, garlic and spices, replaced the chickpea flour and cumin with falafel mix--which turned out fab and was awesome with my falafel balls. Socca is so versatile that you really can easily customize it to the dish you're serving it with.

Ingredients (adapted from DavidLebovitz.com):

1 cup chickpea flour

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/8 teaspoon ground cumin

2  1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

dash of salt and pepper 

Note: His recipe says these make 3 9-10" pancakes. I used a small skillet so that I could flip them and I was able to make 6 6" ones. And I also used alot more olive oil--2 tablespoons for the batter and lots of drizzle for the pan each time I put new batter on.

Directions:

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, water, salt, pepper, cumin and olive oil. Whisk until there isn't any lumps please. Let the batter rest for a few hours covered at room temperature. 

Heat up a medium size skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil. 

Pour a generous ladle full of batter and wait for it to get all bubbly before flipping. The recipe on David's site used the oven under the broil setting but I found this works well for me.

Once cooked on both sides, remove to plate. Now add more olive oil to the pan and repeat the process with remaining batter. This flatbread is nice and crispy on the edges and great to eat with hummus or cheese spreads. Used as a wrapper for salads or falafals. Give it a try and you'll be pleasantly surprised at what you find yourself pairing with these.