Fresh Thymes Chickpea Flatbread
Socca, Farinata, Panisse, Cecina its all different names for our famous flatbread, a ubiquitous street food snack all over France, Italy and the Mediterranean.
The use of chickpea flour as a base for all kinds of lovely breads is famous all over the Mediterranean and Northern Africa. Often cooked over an open flame on a massive copper or cast iron or steel pan, it goes by many names: Socca, Farinata, Panisse, Cecina among many others. Chickpea flour is high in soluble fiber and resistant starch, making it ideal nourishment for your microbiome. Be sure to purchase organic chickpeas and chickpea flour. Conventional chickpeas are sprayed with glyphosate after harvest as a desiccant - that is to hasten the drying of the bean pods to speed the harvest cycle. Glyphosate is a known disrupter of the microbiome, inducing dysbiosis, which causes many digestive symptoms and inflammation.
The secret to the Fresh Thymes famous flatbread (socca!) is fermenting the batter! The result is a final product that looks so pillowy and creates a distinctive sourdough flavor. When we first opened, I had a hard time convincing customers that this was delicious food! We named it various things, and everyone wanted to call it corn bread. We also had to teach people that the nature of a fermented food product is the difference in each batch depending on the seasons of the year. We kept making it, stuck with naming it Chickpea Flatbread and it became one of the signature bites of yumminess we made.
If you choose to use our method, make the batter at least 24 hours before you would like to bake it. Once you mix the batter, cover it with a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm draft free location overnight. If you don’t use it the following day, it will refrigerate well and keep for about 5 days before it gets too sour and should be discarded. If you are not able to ferment the batter, you do need to let it rest for at least 4 hours before making the flatbread. This allows the chickpea flour to be fully hydrated, and reduces the sometimes off-putting “beany” flavor of raw chickpea flour. It will however result in a more dense but still delicious final product.
This base is also fantastic as a crust for pizza toppings as well. If desired, bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and layer the toppings. Place back in the oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve.
A few other fun ideas for a second use of leftover flatbread is to cut it into cubes and toast to make croutons, crumble and make flatbread “crumbs” as a topping for all things you need breadcrumbs for. It’s also great blended into soup as a thickener, as many cultures use their day old bread.