Socca- and what is considered bread anyway?

Just a pondering..what should we call "BREAD"? As a longtime vegan I call all sorts of things "milk" that just aren't. I'm now experimenting with gluten free grains due to some health issues which I hope result in me just needing to eat low gluten breads like sourdough or something because I'm a huge baker and bread lover!

But for the time being I say there are plenty of beans and grains to grind and make "bread". I have become a little obsessed with socca, a french dish that is basically chickpea flour flatbread. Its so simple and dense and really satisfying, best of all it can be made in a cast iron skillet. It hasn't occured to me to just grind up chickpeas to make flour rather than purchase it as flour but I'm wondering if a flour mill could do such a thing? Im in zone 5 so I'm not sure if I could grow chickpeas successfully but I use them so often it would be great to have them for flour, hummus, etc. Any other chickpea or socca fans want to share their experience with recipes, grinding chickpeas or growing chickpeas?

You might find this thread interesting especially the part about cooking chickpeas:

https://permies.com/t/171816/kitchen/Garbanzo-Flour#1348630

I was looking for flat bread recipes to use chickpea flour and came across Socca.
It sounded most like a fried polenta, and not much like bread.
Since you make it, how would you describe it?
I was also wondering if it could be made with ground up chickpeas, but I found no recipes for that method.

Socca is a little more like polenta than bread in texture, but smoother. It's dense and creamy and absolutely delicious!

My understanding is that many grain mills struggle with grinding beans, so you'd need to take that into account. I buy fresh ground chickpea flour from a health food store locally once in a while, and whatever mill they have doesn't get the flour fine enough. It's always a little grainy. Chickpea flour should be very fine like corn starch (or cornflour, depending on what country you're from).

If you add leavener to chickpea flour and make a pancake with it, it's actually pretty similar in texture to a wheat pancake.

Oh, and if you meant making socca with ground up cooked chickpeas...no, that wouldn't work. You'd get a totally different thing - quite possibly lovely, but not much like socca 😁

As far as growing chickpeas goes, I haven't figured out a space efficient enough way for me to grow them. There's only one or two chickpeas per pod and I go through 15+ kilos of chickpeas in a year.

Great information Jan!
It appreciate knowing what will and will not work.

I've grown chickpeas in the winter here in zone 8/9, so you should be able to get a decent crop in a zone 5 summer. My Wondermill Jr does a fine job grinding them, as well.

I've had a lot of failed bread experiments, often with a good flavor but collapsed or just never rose. If those can be called bread, then socca is definitely bread. :)

Darrell Owens wrote:I've grown chickpeas in the winter here in zone 8/9, so you should be able to get a decent crop in a zone 5 summer.

I don't think it's so much a question of "will it grow?" as it is "will it produce enough to be worth the effort?"

My first attempt at growing chickpeas, a 10-ft row produced 5 pods, total. I have tried a few times since, with varying degrees of success, the best one averaging 12 pods per plant. Still looking for the right combination of variety and technique to get a better crop for the work.

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:

Darrell Owens wrote:I've grown chickpeas in the winter here in zone 8/9, so you should be able to get a decent crop in a zone 5 summer.

I don't think it's so much a question of "will it grow?" as it is "will it produce enough to be worth the effort?"

My first attempt at growing chickpeas, a 10-ft row produced 5 pods, total. I have tried a few times since, with varying degrees of success, the best one averaging 12 pods per plant. Still looking for the right combination of variety and technique to get a better crop for the work.

Oh, man, I'm sorry to read that. Even though the birds and other critters of the field knew they were ready long before I did, I got quite a bit more than that. I wonder if maybe it was the heat for you then. Chickpea pollen is sensitive to high temps over about 30C/86F. If it goes much higher than that, yields drop quite a bit. Maybe try planting it a little later so that it's flowering in later summer/early fall and the pollen won't have to deal with the summer highs. That's why I planted mine as a winter crop.

William Bronson wrote: I was looking for flat bread recipes to use chickpea flour and came across Socca.
It sounded most like a fried polenta, and not much like bread.
Since you make it, how would you describe it?
I was also wondering if it could be made with ground up chickpeas, but I found no recipes for that method.

I think it's much different than polenta, but also much different than bread I suppose. I think it's more consistency like a thin pizza crust that's undercooked, although tastes much better! I use it to make skillet pizza often.

No, ground cooked chickpeas wouldn't work if that's what you mean.

Darrell Owens wrote:I've grown chickpeas in the winter here in zone 8/9, so you should be able to get a decent crop in a zone 5 summer. My Wondermill Jr does a fine job grinding them, as well.

I've had a lot of failed bread experiments, often with a good flavor but collapsed or just never rose. If those can be called bread, then socca is definitely bread. :)

Oh this is encouraging. I want to try growing some next season. Starting small of course!