The Italian pancake aka the farinata is a gluten free pancake made from chickpea flour. Another reason to love chickpeas, plus they produce a delicious crisp on the outside while being fluffy on the inside.

Perfect when accompanied with a salad for lunch or dinner.

Recipe makes 2 small farinatas made in a 8.5 inch/ 21 cm frying pan

INGREDIENTS

For the farinata:

½ cup chickpea flour

½ cup Plenish cashew milk

sea salt & black pepper

pinch of nutritional yeast

chopped fresh herbs – whatever you’ve got to hand! – or a pinch of dried herbs

4 tablespoons olive oil

For the kale salad:

2 generous handfuls of curly kale

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 tablespoons toasted pistachios

2 tablespoons of pomegranate seeds

juice of ½ lemon

tablespoon pomegranate molasses, optional

METHOD

Preheat the grill to its highest setting; place an oven rack at the top of the oven, and have an oven proof dish at the bottom of the oven (on which to hold your first farinata warm as you cook the second).

Sieve the chickpea flour into a mixing bowl; add the salt and pepper, nutritional yeast and herbs. Slowly pour in the cashew milk, whisking as you do so. Whisk well to avoid a lumpy batter. Leave this to one side as the grill preheats and you prepare the salad ingredients.

If your pistachio nuts need toasting do so now and allow these to cool before coarsely chopping. De-seed the pomegranate. Remove the tough central stalks from the kale, and chop the leaves into smaller sections.

When the grill has pre-heated, you are ready to cook your farinata. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a small frying pan until smoking hot. Pour in half your batter and roll it around the pan. It should sizzle immediately and bubble and blister at the edges.  This will cook quickly but should never look or smell like it’s burning, so watch closely, you can take it off the heat, or turn the heat down as needed.

After a minute or two you should see air bubbles forming across the surface of the farinata ; you can now pop it under the grill for 2 minutes to cook from the top down. Full cooking time will be about five minutes, and the pancake should be golden on both sides, and crispy at the edges.

Once cooked transfer to the warmed oven-proof dish, and repeat again with the remaining batter.

The farinata is best eaten as soon as possible, so quickly finish your kale salad as the second farinata is under the grill.

Heat 1 tablesppon of oil and 1 tablespoon of water in a medium saucepan. Once sizzling add the kale and a pinch of salt, and pop the lid on; this will encourage the kale to ‘steam-fry’. Cook the kale for approximately 3 minutes, giving it a stir half way though. Remove the lid for the last 30 seconds and turn the heat up so any excess water can evaporate.

Drizzle the cooked kale with a little extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and possibly a drizzle of pomegranate molasses too. Toss with the toasted and chopped pistachios and the fresh pomegranate seeds, and serve alongside your farinata