The routine is always the same when we arrive at our house in Sicily. It is invariably late and everyone is cross. Turn on the tap to see if there is water (50/50 chance), yank up blinds, take visible bags inside but leave boot full, go to the pizzeria. It isn’t pizza we are looking for: it is ragu- and pea-filled rice balls called arancine, a cold beer and panelle.
Deep-fried squares of chickpea flour batter that taste both nutty and creamy, panelle, like chips, are almost always good, even when they are not. Eaten in the piazza, the air thick and warm, they sate our hunger as the seatbelt creases fade.
Panelle are a legacy of ninth-century Arab domination in Sicily. They are made by cooking the chickpea flour with water like polenta, until thick enough to set and then be sliced and fried. There are other recipes that use chickpea flour batter in Italy, mostly coastal towns, which suggests seafaring migration, maybe – a girl and a chickpea recipe in every port, or something like that. There is the baked farinata of Genoa, scented with rosemary and served in slices; the baked cecina or torta di ceci of Livorno in Tuscany, sandwiched in foccacia, and fainé in Sassari. After a drink or three, we plan for a chickpea odyssey, driving the length of Italy in search of them all, but until we do, we make them at home.
I was committed to deep-frying panelle and baking farinata in the oven until the chef Claire Thomson arrived in my kitchen with a bottle of batter and got out a frying pan. Chickpea flour pancakes are made by shallow-frying, as you would ordinary pancakes, but have a particular flavour: the nutty, creamy savoury/sweetness of chickpeas with something newly sprouted; also crisp edges and an almost custardy middle. It was a stove eureka moment, and we have been making them at least once a week ever since. I have come to feel about bags of chickpea flour as I once did about packets of cigarettes: one on the go, one spare at all times.
Chickpea flour is pastel yellow, and rather like talcum and cocoa in that it has an incredible fineness: stick a finger in and it is has a pleasing, silky nothingness. For pancakes, whisk 250g chickpea flour, 450ml cold water and a big pinch of salt into a batter with the consistency of smooth single cream. It then needs to sit for at least two and up to 24 hours, in which time it will bubble and thicken a little. When it is time to fry, heat a generous tablespoon of olive oil in a small, nonstick frying pan and add a ladleful of batter, then swish it round as you would a pancake, aiming for something about 5mm thick. Once the edges are crisp, lift to check the underside. When it is deep golden, flip and cook the other side, then slide on to a plate.
A favourite partner for these pancakes is a small heap of twice-cooked greens – broccoli, spinach or chard, boiled briefly, drained, then cooked again in olive oil with a little garlic and chilli, with ricotta or salted ricotta on top. Alternatively, (and hoping this column feels like ongoing episodes, rather than a series of one-offs) the braised peas and spring onion from two weeks ago. In summer, a red pepper and tomato stew called peperonata is an absolutely delicious sidekick, as is sweet-and-sour caponata, making the pancakes feel rather Sicilian.
