These are two old Ligurian recipes, both listing chickpea flour (gluten free), from the days when poverty was endemic and people turned frugality into art.
Farinata and panissa are usually cold season appetizers, since the chickpea flour is made in late summer and doesn't survive to the hot season without changing its taste.
Farinata -- Chickpea flour cake
Farinata is a sort of very thin cake made of chickpea flour eaten hot, even in the streets, in every moment of the day, a common habit, a sort of medieval Italian-style fast-food with few, healthy ingredients.
Since in Genoese dialect it's called "fainà", the farinata bakeries are still called fainòtti. It's very interesting to see an ancient fainòtto oven working, with its wood fire and the huge round copper baking sheets.
250g. (9 oz) chickpea flour
salt
1/2 glass extra-virgin olive oil
black pepper
3-4 liters (12-16 cups) water
(optional: chopped spring onions or sliced artichokes)
Leave the chickpea flour in water for a minimum of 4 hours with some salt and mix well. You may add finely chopped spring onions or artichokes to the mixture. Meanwhile, grease the special farinata copper baking sheet or a very thin, round baking sheet (20 inches in diameter) with the oil and pour the mixture, mix until it will be perfectly amalgamated with the oil. It has to be thin, half an inch more or less. Bake in a preheated oven at 190-200°C (375-400°F) and don't extract until it's a rich golden colour. You may eat it simply with a pinch of salt, but it's very good with some freshly ground black pepper. Farinata has to be served hot.
It is of paramount importance that the pan is perfectly flat and level when in the oven, otherwise one of the corners will be thicker and will be undercooked when the opposite corner starts to darken.
It's also fundamental that you use Italian chickpea flour; Middle Eastern flours will yield poor results.
This dish is very common in Northwestern Italy, but virtually impossible to find in the United States.
Suggested wine: Arcola bianco (served at 10° C/ 50° F)
Panissa
To serve 6:
450 g. (1 pound ) chickpea flour
Extra virgin olive Oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat 1,5 L. (one and a half quarts) of water. When it reaches a boil remove it from the fire and sift in the flour, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. The resulting should be smooth and not overly thick. Return the pot to the fire and cook the panissa for about an hour and 20 minutes, stirring constantly; should it dry out too much while it's cooking stir in more boiling water.
If you have a polenta pot with a mechanical stirrer, the cooking will be much easier.
When it's done, divvy it out into bowls.
Once it was eaten hot or warm, simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and excellent olive oil, but it's really good cut in strips and fried in olive oil, then seasoned (see photo).
In Savona people customarily split slices of focaccia and fill them with fried panissa strips and "Formaggetta Savonese" (cow & goat or cow & ewe cheese) to make a sort of sandwich; they say that such a sandwich is a one-course meal and requires a cool glass of white Lumassìna wine to wash it down.
