A Trip To Nice...Nice!

The Ron Orp kitchen has been in full swing again, this time trying to recreate a street food dish that i sampled in the south of France. Socca de Nice are delicious pancakes made from chickpea (i love chickpeas) dough and are eaten pure and unadorned in France. But it doesn’t have to be too french so i’ll show you a delicious variation with different toppings.

For the dough

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300 grams chickpea flour
400 ml water
1/2 teaspoon salt
optional: 1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped (if you are not so fond of garlic, just leave it out) 

For the topping

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A few spoons of pesto
créme fraîche
Spring onion
some mushrooms (my favourites are Shitake)
Asparagus tips
a few teaspoons of pine nuts
fresh herbs from the balcony (or on the Migros refrigerator)
Cherry tomatoes
Tomato sauce, (I used leftovers from the previous day.)
1 organic lemon

With all these ingredients, I made two variations of the socca, one très Française, the other more Italian. The great thing about socca is it can be covered however you like. If you don’t feel like fighting corona zombies in Migro just use whatever you have in the fridge. The only rule is no pineapple - Italians won’t tolerate it or the French…in fact no-one will…okay maybe people from Hawaii.

First off, i began by preparing the dough: put all the ingredients in a bowl and then stir the whisk vigorously until a creamy, liquid dough is produced. Let this dough rest for at least one hour, so that the chickpea flour can soak up the water.

In the meantime, you can prepare the ingredients for the toppings. For the French version I roasted the pine nuts in a frying pan and fried the tomatoes and mushrooms in a separate pan with a few spoons of good quality olive oil and the herbs i lovingly cultivated on my balcony.

I halved the asparagus tips lengthwise and fried them separately with the grated lemon peel and olive oil. Then I put all the ingredients in my preheated oven to keep them warm. For the Italian version I simply cut the zuchhini into fine strips with a peeler and then broke the mozzarella balls into smaller pieces. 

Then it's time for the chickpea dough: I put one or two tablespoons of olive oil into a normal sized frying pan, let the oil get nice and hot (level 4.5 of 6 levels on my stove) and then bake one crispy and fluffy socca after the other (for me it was enough for 4 relatively large soccas). It is best to portion the soccas, by using a ladle. First bake the flat cake for a few minutes on one side (i can’t give you specific time. It was just a feeling), then either turn it directly in the pan with a good bounce and bake the second side again as you feel it. The socca can also be turned using the classic soaking technique (that's what I decided on). You let the socca slide onto a flat plate, turn it «in the dry,» and then put it back into the frying pan - works great!

Then you can already begin with the covering of the soccas. The Italian version has to be baked for a few minutes at about 180 degrees (circulating air), while the French version can be eaten directly after you’ve added the topping.

I covered the Italian style socca with my tomato sauce from the previous evening, the zucchini slices, the mozzarella pieces and some cherry tomatoes and then put them in the oven for about 10 minutes.......after baking they look like this.......yummy ;)! 

For the French version, spread crème fraîche on the socca along with the asparagus, tomatoes, mushrooms and pine nuts. Garnish with a few spring onions of you fancy. 

All that’s left to do is enjoy it in the sunshine on the bacony. Sip a glass of wine, close your eyes and image the crystal blue waters of the med in front of you. En Bon.