[Sca-cooks] Cicera fracta, farinata

[Terry Decker]

> Ana wrote:
>
> I think it must be similar to the thing we eat in Buenos Aires and
> Montevideo, here it's called faina and it's eaten together with pizza. But
> the original is from Genua and there is called farinata, I think our faina
> is a form of dialect.
> In Nice, where it's eaten as traditional nicoise food, it's called socca.
> And I ate it in Tanger in Marocco but I don't remember the name, it was
> streetfood in Tanger.
> It's done with chickpea flour, olive oil and salt and peppar, nothing 
> more.
> Really delicious.
>
> This sounds like falafel to me. Perhaps "fracta" means crushed? The basis
> for felafel is not quite a chickpea flour; it's crushed dried chickpeas,
> reconsituted in hot water and then fried, often in a patty form. It has a
> crunch and mouth feel you wouldn't get with flour.
>
> AEschwynne

Faina isn't falafel.  It is chickpea flat bread of varying degrees of 
thickness usually baked in an open oven.  There is a variant that is cooked 
to the consistency of polenta then sliced and fried.  The basic recipe is 
chickpea flour, water and olive oil usually seasoned with salt and pepper, 
but there are some recipes that call for rosemary and other herbs and 
spices.

Bear