Spring Socca with Green Goddess Tahini

Meet socca, a crepe-like pancake made from chickpea flour. It’s super simple, versatile, healthy and fun. It’s also French!  Its slightly earthy flavor marries beautifully with olive oil and works wonders in a hot cast iron skillet where it transforms into a delightfully crisp-on-the-edges, fluffy-in-the-middle pancake that can be torn and dredged through something saucy and savory like a lively romesco or pesto or topped with a handful of fresh spring greens. It makes for a wonderful appetizer to be shared or served as a simple dinner (with green salad and glass of wine!).

I love making socca on weeknights. It’s super-fast, but it does require a bit of a soak to keep the inside of the pancake extra smooth and creamy. Chickpea flour needs more time to fully hydrate than wheat-based flours, so once you whisk together the flour, water and oil, it needs to sit for at least 30 minutes. Unlike most other pancakes, socca is cooked in the oven, a nod to its origin as a Nicoise street food. Cast iron performs best; preheat the pan in a scorching-hot oven, add oil, pour in the batter and bake. If you like your edges extra crispy, you can turn on the broiler for the last few minutes until the social is lightly blistered.

I love that socca is tasty and easy, but I really love how loaded with nutrition it is. It’s base is chickpea flour, a fine-but-hearty flour made from whole garbanzo beans, which means its you know that packed with protein and fiber, plus iron, folate and magnesium. One quarter cup of chickpea flour has a whopping 5 grams fiber and 5 grams protein. That makes this savvy spring pancake quite satiating, too. And, it’s also gluten free.

Socca is best served with a dipping sauce. It just made sense to me that a chickpea-based pancake would go well with a tahini-based sauce (hummus, anyone?), so here I made a spring-inspired Green Goddess Tahini full of fresh floral basil, zippy mint and bright lemon.  I happened upon some fresh sunflower sprouts at the local farmer’s market which inspired my toppers: fresh peas, spring sprouts and creamy avocado.  Feeling extra fancy? Add a smear of good ricotta or top it with a fried egg.

Serves 4

Green Goddess Tahini:

½ cup tahini

½ cup fresh mint leaves

½ cup fresh basil leaves

2 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoon lemon juice

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

1 clove garlic, smashed

½ cup water

 

Socca:

1 cup chickpea flour

1 cup warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

½ cup fresh peas

1 ripe avocao, cubed

1 cup fresh pea, sunflower, or broccoli sprouts

 

To prepare Green Goddess Tahini:
Place tahini, mint, basil, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic in a mini food processor or blender. Add ½ cup water. Puree until smooth, thinning with more water as needed to reach desired consistency. Sauce may thicken slightly as it sits. Season with salt and more lemon juice, if desired.

To prepare Socca:
Combine flour, water, 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk until smooth. Cover and let sit at least 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 450°.

Place a 10-inch, heavy cast iron skillet in the oven while it preheats.

Carefully remove cast-iron skillet from oven. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to pan; swirl to coat. Stir batter once; pour batter into skillet. Carefully swirl to coat pan. Bake at 450° for 15-20 minutes or until brown and crisp.

Boil fresh peas 3 minutes in salted water until tender. In a small bowl, combine peas, sprouts and avocado.  Drizzle with ¼ cup Green Goddess Tahini; toss to coat.

Serve socca with sprout salad; drizzle with additional Green Goddess Tahini

*Note - for a thinner socca, use ¾ cup flour and ¾ cup water.  Reduce baking time by 5 minutes.

Sidney Fry is a two-time James-Beard-Award-winning food and nutrition writer who loves creating simple, healthy recipes and thoughtful, actionable content for the hungry consumer. A healthy living proactivist, Sidney is also a registered dietitian nutritionist, recipe developer and mama of three based in Birmingham, Alabama.