Olivier Poels 5:40 p.m., March 3, 2022

This is a specialty that smells of Marseille: a preparation based on chickpea flour.

Chickpea (legume) has been known all around the Mediterranean basin for millennia.

Its flour is used to develop many recipes, including the famous panisses, which look like fries.

If this specialty is often described as Marseille, in reality, it does not come from Marseille!

Panisses are indeed Italian and come more precisely from Liguria.

In the 19th century, many Italians emigrated to Provence, and brought panisses there.

We find the first trace of panisse in Marseille in a dictionary from the 1830s, under the definition of "chickpea flour cake made by the Genoese and sold on the court".

Do not confuse panisses and socca (dough of chickpea flour and water cooked in the oven and specialty of Nice)

Panisse recipe

Ingredients :

  • 125 g chickpea flour

  • 40 cl of water

  • 1 tbsp olive oil

  • salt pepper

  • Mix the flour, 10 cl of water and the oil

  • Boil the remaining 30 cl

  • Mix everything to obtain a nice homogeneous paste.

  • Pour this dough on a plate covered with parchment paper (do not spread it too much and keep 1 cm high)

  • Leave to cool and harden for 12 hours

  • Cut into sticks the size of large french fries

  • Cook them in a fryer at 180° for 5 minutes.

  • Salt and pepper