Socca Pizza
Everyone loves pizza right? But the bread based for those of us trying to avoid gluten means we miss out on the delicious delights of what can be an amazing healthy meal rather than junk food - thanks to socca based pizzas!
Socca is made from gram flour (chick pea and split yellow pea flour) which is gluten free; Both are pulses, which contain fibres which feed our gut bacteria. In the south of France, in the Nice region, you will find 'soccas' as 'street food', baked freshly in a hot stone oven and usually just served with a sprinkling of salt. Here we are using the principles of making socca for making a pizza base. Otherwise, we have successfully made them into pancakes and wraps - click here for socca fajita wrap recipe.
Plus, every great pizza topping starts with a great tomato base, right? We like to make our own 'simple' tomato paste from scratch of course!
IMPORTANT TO NOTE..
The socca mixture needs to be left overnight to ferment, so you need to do this first step the day / night before you plan to eat your delicious socca pizzas.
FYI - This is NOT a fast food pizza option but it's delicious and way more nutritious!
Ingredients
Socca:
50% Gram flour
50% water
Pinch of salt
Dash of apple cider vinegar
Avocado or coconut oil for cooking
Tomato base (if you want to home-make) Otherwise, we'd recommend to use a simple passata.
- 2-3 large (or 12 cherry) fresh tomatoes
- 3-4 sun-dried tomatoes
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 2 tsp dried and/or fresh mixed herbs (ie. Parsley, oregano, basil, rosemary)
- Half tsp chipotle or normal chili flakes (optional)
- 1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
- Splash balsamic vinegar
- Half med white/red onion
- 1 med carrot
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil
- Pinch of sea salt.
Method
Fermenting the socca mix:
- Mix 500ml water with an equal amount of gram flour and a tablespoon of organic apple cider vinegar. The thinner or thicker you want your socca pizza based you just have a little more or a little less water (but keep the mix roughly 50/50).
- Blend together and leave overnight to ferment at room temperature with just a clean tea towel over the top.
Cooking the socca/ make them into pizza bases:
- Heat some coconut/avocado oil in a frying pan on a medium heat.
- Add a pinch of salt to the now fermented socca mixture and blend one final time (as the mixture will have settled overnight during the fermentation process).
- Then pour into the frying pan enough socca mixture to cover whole pan in a thin layer (this will create nice thin wraps but if you want thicker or making a pizza base or pancakes for example simply add a little more mixture at this stage.)
- Turn the pan on a low heat now and wait... wait... much longer than you think. When you think it looks ready to flip / turn, wait a few minutes longer.
NB. You want it to crisp up and turn golden before you attempt the flip and it's just a longer cooking process than you might expect! Patience is key - trust us! (But if it does go wrong what we call 'socca scraps' are equally amazing!).
Touch around the edges with your fish slice (or favourite pancake flipping kitchen tool) to have a peak underneath, when you see it's golden and crisp you're ready to flip. Flip or turn it over...if it's a fight it just needs longer to cook.
Topping and cooking your socca pizza:
- Simply put all of the above ingredients into a nutribullet type blender, whizz it up and that's it!
Catherine
