La Soca Niçarda/La Socca Niçoise (Niçois Chickpea Cake)

Un pichoun repas en plen aire ambé la soca niçarda e dei froumages

This past Sunday, after an overcast start, turned by noon into a fine day, with an almost cloudless sky and the temperature rising to about 80º F. Having spent most of the morning toiling in the garden in anticipation of enjoying further on this summer some home-grown ingredients for boumiano, ratatouia, samfaina, cianfotta (link), we all thought we might just as well stay outside and enjoy lunch al fresco or en plein air as well. Now, surrounded by so many tomato and eggplant and courgette and pepper plants, sitting beside handsome rows of thyme and parsley and oregano and sage and basil, it seemed a meal with a decidedly Mediterranean bent was required and then something fairly light: some bread, some raw vegetables and cheese and olives. And to add something special to the table, la soca...

On Saturday morning, I woke up with a need to eat soca (standard French socca), that quintessential outdoor food of Nice that is but a simple, thin and flat cake-like baked good made from chickpea flour, water, olive oil and salt. Baked quickly at high heat, the Niçoise soca and it’s Ligurian counterpart fainá (standard Italian farinata) is a remarkably flavourful dish, best finished with nothing more than a bit of freshly ground black pepper. To satisfy my desire, I headed off to buy some chickpea flour at Graziano's and the next day, I had my chance to make this simple dish.


Along with our soca, we also had some delicious fresh Italian bread from Masi’s Italian Superior Bakery and a couple of plates of cheese with appropriate accompaniments of crudités and olives. To the left is l’assiette à la napolitaine with fresh mozzarella, tomato, just picked basil, kalamatas (we were all out of Gaetas) and olive oil from southern Lazio; in the middle toward the back is l’assiette à la grecque, with Greek feta, cucumbers, onion, parsley, pickled Greek hot peppers, green olives from Thessaloniki and olive oil from Crete. To the right in the foreground is a two pound form of Sicilian primo sale, that is, a youngish pecorino or sheep's milk cheese, in this case with whole black peppercorns.


Vaqui lo nòstre pichoun repàs ambé la soca niçarda:


Incidentally, the chickpea flour required for the making of soca I purchased at Graziano’s on Randolph(link) at a cost of only about $1.75 per pound. The primo sale was also purchased there at about $6.50 per pound.

Antonius

The weather has me in a similar mood, manifested in a recent pesto with hand-made trofie and focaccia with sage.

For those who want to taste the stuff that Antonius made, I know that socca is the specialty of the house at the new Wrigleyville restaurant of the same name and that the caffe across from D'Amato's #1 (Buongiorno, IIRC) has sandwiches with the Sicillian chickpea cake, panelle.

I can't vouch for either, since I have yet to try them. But I figured maybe someone here has by now.