Farinata

By John, 14 August, 2025
Region
Italy
Description

F"Farinata"arinata is a crispy thin bread of chickpea four and water, cooked in an oiled skillet at high temperature. It's gluten-free, so it's not like most breads, but it's too crispy to be called a pancake. It has a natural sweetness, but I still classify it as a savory dish. In Liguria and along the northern Tuscan coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea as far as Pisa it's a street food, but we're not so familiar for it to have "bred contempt", so with good technique and quality ingredients it can go nicely with any assortment of aperitivi.

By all accounts that I have seen, the best farinata has a thin crispy crust with a soft custardy center, the whole thing perfumed with fresh rosemary and black pepper.

The key thing to know about farinata is that the chickpea flour-water mixture must rest for about 5 hours before you bake it. There's no rising, it just takes that long for the chickpea flour to get fully hydrated and stay tender and digestible.

Here's how to do it:

Yield
6 Servings
Preparation time
5 hours
Cooking time
20 minutes
Total time
5 hours, 20 minutes
Ingredients
1⁄4 c Chickpea Flour
1 3⁄4 c Lukewarm water
1⁄2 t Salt
1 Rosemary sprig (about 10", needles of)
4 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions

Farinata is made from Nice to Livorno, all around the boomerang coast of Liguria and down the straight Tuscan coast. In Versilia, the Tuscan coastal strip that stretches from the border of Liguria to Livorno, farinata changes its name and becomes calda-calda (hot-hot, because it's eaten out of the hot pan).

Farinata is mainly eaten there and then, in the street outside the shop, or near the stall. where it is made in a huge round copper pan. I (Anna del Conte, this is her recipe) like to serve farinata with pre-prandial drinks - with plenty of paper napkins for wiping oily fingers!

Put the chick-pea flour in a large bowl. Add water gradually while beating hard. Season with salt and continue beating for a further minute. Let rest for 4 to 6 hours.

Heat the oven to 475°F

Skim off the froth from the surface chick-pea mixture using a slotted spoon and again briefly whip it and then add the Rosemary and the oil into a 12in shallow tin or an 8x13in oven pan.

Stir the chick-pea mixture and the tin.

Place the tin in the oven. Turn to 425°F and bake 20 minutes, until the mixture ha of 

Sprinkle pepper all over the top. Take it out of the oven for 10 minutes but the Farinata is best served hot, but room temperature.

 

Source

Anna del Conte, Classic Food of Northern Italy