Socca

These are chickpea pancakes that are neither light and fluffy like a breakfast pancake, nor thin and pliable like a crepe. They are, instead, rather dense and, as it turns out, an excellent vehicle for a topping of sweet caramelized onions and intensely flavoured roasted cherry tomatoes.

The batter has few ingredients, just some chickpea flour, water, olive oil and whipped egg whites, is easy to blend and cooks quickly. I used the recommended size of pan, and even with the one I broke while trying to flip going to the dog, I still had 6 instead of 4, so the topping was spread a little more sparingly than the author intended.

My kids added parmesan cheese and called it a pizza. My husband and I had it with the suggested creme fraiche, which was a very nice cool and creamy complement to the socca.