Socca

These are gluten-free flatbreads made with chickpea flour. They are a classic street food in and around Nice, where vendors cook them on a huge griddle, then cut them up, sprinkle them with rosemary and pepper and hand them to you in paper bags, still warm.

Socca make great wraps for salad, or try them as nibbles, with a glass of chilled rosé, some olives, and a quick chickpea purée, made by briefly pulsing a can of well-drained chickpeas with 2 garlic cloves in a blender until you have a stiff paste (you can add a chopped chilli if you want to give it some heat), then adding the juice of a lemon and pulsing again, before slowly adding up to 250g of extra virgin olive oil until the paste is quite loose.

You could use green pea flour (see page 194) or buckwheat flour for the batter instead of chickpea flour as other gluten-free options. And instead of herbs you could add some chopped olives or sun-dried tomatoes.

A trick from my native Brittany for greasing the pans lightly and easily is to cut a potato in half, spear it with a fork so that it is cut-side down then dip this into a shallow bowl of oil and rub it all over the surface.