Italian · Liguria · bread

Farinata di Ceci

Name: Farinata di Ceci
Prep time: 32 min
Total time: 8 h 32 min
Cuisine: Italian · Liguria
Ingredients: chickpea flour — 300 g; cold water — 900 g; salt — 10 g; extra virgin olive oil — 55 g; extra virgin olive oil — 37 g; freshly ground black pepper — 10 g; rosemary leaf — 5 g; salt — 5 g

Farinata di Ceci reads herbaceous 5.0, salinity 4.5 and richness 4.3 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Italian · Liguria bread, about 8 hr 32 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

Umami & Savory — 4.7 / 10
Sweet & Fruity — 1.6 / 10
Sour & Bright — 1.2 / 10
Bitter & Earthy — 2.5 / 10
Rich & Fat — 5.1 / 10
Aromatic & Spice — 5.4 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Herbaceous 5.0 · Salinity 4.5 · Richness 4.3 · Nutty 2.7 · Warm Spice 2.6 · Umami 2.3 · Floral 2.2 · Earthy 2.2 · Bitterness 2.2 · Sweetness 1.4 · Citrus 1.2 · Heat 0.9 · Fruity 0.7

What's in it (8)

chickpea flour — 300 g
cold water — 900 g
salt — 10 g
extra virgin olive oil — 55 g
extra virgin olive oil — 37 g
freshly ground black pepper — 10 g
rosemary leaf — 5 g
salt — 5 g

Time & effort: about 8 hr 32 min (32 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 93.2 kcal, 5.3 g protein, 1.6 g fat, 14.2 g carbs

Dietary: Vegan — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (6 steps)

Whisk the chickpea flour into the cold water slowly, breaking up every lump. Cover and leave it at cool room temperature for 6 to 10 hours, or overnight. This long rest is not idleness: the starch hydrates, the raw beany taste settles, and a grey foam rises which you skim off and discard.
Whisk in the fine salt and the 60 ml of olive oil until the batter is homogeneous and the consistency of single cream. It should coat a spoon thinly and run straight off.
Heat the oven as hot as it will go, 250 C or more, with a 32 cm copper or heavy steel pan inside for 15 minutes. The traditional pan is a wide, shallow, tinned copper testo, and in Genoa the farinata is baked in a wood oven at temperatures a domestic oven cannot reach; the closer you get, the better the result.
Pull the pan out, pour in the 40 ml of oil, swirl it, then pour in the batter to a depth of no more than 5 mm. It will sizzle. Stir once with a fork to disperse the oil through the batter, scatter over the rosemary if you are using it, and return it to the oven.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until the surface is blistered and browned in patches, the edges have lifted and gone crisp, and the middle is set but still creamy under the crust. If your oven has a top element, give it 2 minutes under a high grill to freckle the surface.
Slide it out, grind over an aggressive amount of black pepper and the flaky salt, and cut it into rough wedges with a knife. Eat it burning hot, standing, ideally folded inside a piece of focaccia, which is how Genoese dockworkers ate it.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Fainá — Argentine
Italian String Beans — Italian
Spanish-Style Chicken With Rice And Peppers — Spanish
Sauteed Turnip Greens & Garlic Scapes — Southern
Insalata Caprese — Italian

Keep reading: what herbaceous, salinity, richness mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.