Socca

I've been working on trying to make Socca the way I like it ever since I found a bag of chickpea flour in Fuengirola and I think I finally have a rough idea how to do it.

I followed a recipe in The New York Times by Mark Bittman and modified it to suit my tastes and the quirks of my oven.

What did I change?

First of all since I wasn't impressed by the soft Socca I made the first time, I divided the batter into two to get a thinner crispier Socca.

I also added 1 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns on top of the ground black pepper (though there was less than 1 teaspoon of the ground stuff in the batter), a generous amount of ground dried red chili peppers, some dried rosemary and sprinkled coarse salt over the batter after it was in the pan.

I set the initial temperature higher to 250C (482F) instead of 204 C (400F) and put the pan in the middle rack for 15 minutes, then moved it to a higher rack and maxed out the temperature for another 2-3 minutes.

And here's the result: A thin crispy Socca that crackles on the outside and is still somewhat soft inside. They were all gone within minutes of making their debut into this world.