Sicilian · Starter
Panelle Palermitane
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, fresh herbs arguing happily on top, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 250g chickpea flour (farina di ceci)
- 750ml cold water
- 8g fine salt
- 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- a handful of flat parsley, finely chopped
- 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying
- sesame rolls and lemon wedges, to serve
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Tempering a custardDeep fryingDraining fried food: a rack, never paper
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · sesame
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk the chickpea flour into the cold water with the salt until there is not one lump left, rest it 10 minutes and whisk again. 10 min
- Set it over medium heat and stir without stopping for about 12 minutes, until it thickens past custard and comes away from the pan wall as a single mass that holds the mark of the spoon. 12 min
- Beat in the parsley and pepper, then spread the paste 3mm thin on oiled trays while it is still hot, working fast before it sets.
- Cool 20 minutes until firm and matt, then cut into rectangles or triangles. 20 min
- Fry at 180C (355F) in small batches for about 2 minutes, until the surfaces blister into blond bubbles and the panelle float, drain, salt, and eat within five minutes in a sesame roll with lemon. 2 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes
- The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
- It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
- Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
- A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
- Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.
Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauvignon Blanc (Sancerre)
- Also Right
- Grüner Veltliner
- From the Taps
- Berliner weisse
- Zero-Proof
- Cucumber-lime water
Green plates want green wines: vinaigrette’s acid meets its match, and the difficult vegetables surrender to Grüner.
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