Farinata Genovese Recipes

Steps:

• Combine garbanzo flour and water in a bowl; whisk until batter is smooth. Cover bowl with plastic wrap or a plate and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours. Skim as much foam as possible from top of batter. Whisk salt, rosemary, and 3 tablespoons olive oil into batter.
• Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C).
• Place a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over high heat and heat until smoking hot. Pour 2 tablespoons olive oil in skillet and swirl to coat bottom of skillet with oil. Continue to heat until oil shimmers and a wisp of smoke rises from oil.
• Quickly pour batter into hot oil; carefully transfer skillet to preheated oven.
• Bake in the preheated oven until cake is browned and crusty, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer immediately to a plate, cut into wedges, and serve hot. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper.

Steps:

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together chickpea flour and salt.
• Place water in another large mixing bowl.
• Slowly incorporate chickpea flour mixture into water with whisk. The final batter should have the consistency of heavy cream.
• Stir in rosemary leaves.
• Let the batter sit at room temperature, covered, for at least 4 hours or overnight.
• When ready to bake, first skim the scum off of the top of the batter with a large spoon.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Grease a cookie sheet with olive oil. Then cover with parchment paper and grease the paper too. Be sure to grease up the sides of the pan too, trust me on this!
• Remove the rosemary if you like. Stir in the olive oil. Note: If you use 1/2 cup, this is actually 1/2 the amount of the traditional recipe, and it was too oily for me! So depending on how oily you'd like to make it, use anywhere between 1/3 and 1/2 cup.
• Carefully pour into prepared cookie sheet.
• Sprinkle with freshly-ground black pepper.
• Carefully place in oven, ensuring pan is perfectly flat.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the edges start to pull away from the cookie sheet, and the top is bubbly and slightly browned.
• Slice and eat immediately. Good hot or at room temperature. However, it lasts up to 10 days in the fridge, just needs to be reheated.
• Notes: You can also use the slices as a base for pizza or flatbreads. Enjoy!

Steps:

• Double-mill the dried chickpeas, once very coarse and a second time fine. You can also use store bought chickpea flour.
• Mix in the water and the optional sourdough starter. Cover and let the batter sit a minimum of 2 hours and ideally overnight.
• For a not-sour pancake, don't add the sourdough starter and limit the rest time to 12 hours. For a mildly sour/fermented pancake, add the sourdough starter but refrigerate the batter overnight, or skip the sourdough starter and rest the batter for about 24 hours. For a very sour pancake, add the sourdough starter and leave the batter at room temperature overnight, or skip the sourdough starter and leave the batter at room temperature for 3-4 days.
• After the rest, add the salt and pepper to the batter and mix thoroughly.
• Preheat your oven to 450F, with one shelf below the middle and another shelf higher than the middle of your oven.
• Put the olive oil into a cold 10-inch skillet, cast iron or stainless steel, and heat it on the stove. Don't let the oil get to the point of smoking. I have an infrared thermometer and found 360F worked well.
• Add the batter to the skillet and let it cook until the edges curl in a bit, 1-3 minutes.
• Carefully transfer the skillet to the lower shelf of your hot oven.
• Bake for about 25 minutes (10 minutes on the lower shelf and another 10-15 minutes on the higher shelf).
• Use a metal spatula to separate the fainá from the base of the skillet; then leave it in the skillet to cool for about 10 minutes.
• Transfer to a cutting board and serve. Fainá reheats well in a toaster oven or on a fry pan, but is also tasty cold.