Cooked in a searing wood-burning oven, crispy Italian chickpea-flour farinata is a favourite street snack in Liguria and Tuscany. You can eat it with marinated artichoke hearts and juicy olives as a starter, and it makes a great brunch with salad and cheese. Indeed, you can melt some Taleggio slices on top during the last five minutes of the cooking time, or make two small ones with a thick slice of grilled aubergine marinated in garlic and chilli sandwiched between them. If you have the good fortune to cook farinata in a wood-burning oven they cook in minutes as you watch them.

Resting the batter allows it to start fermenting, which lightens the texture. However if you can only leave it for 20 minutes it is still mouth-wateringly delicious.

SERVES 4

150g chickpea flour

400ml water

50ml olive oil for the batter, plus1 tablespoon for cooking

1 teaspoon Maldon sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 sprig rosemary

Put the chickpea flour, water and olive oil in a large bowl and blend with a hand-held blender. Ideally let the batter rest at room temperature for two hours or even overnight.

When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220°C.

With a slotted spoon, remove any foam that has formed on the top of the batter. Add half a teaspoon of salt and some pepper to it. Put a tablespoon of oil into a 30cm × 34cm baking tin and pour in the batter. Cook for 10 minutes and then sprinkle the remaining teaspoon of salt and the rosemary over the top, which will have started to become golden and to develop a skin. Return to the oven and cook until the farinata is crispy brown and firm to the touch, about a further 10 minutes.

Serve immediately.