The Best and Fastest Breakfast with Lots of Protein

How did it take me this long to discover chickpea flour?? Mix it with an equal amount of water (and some oil if you like), add salt and pepper, cook a few minutes in a hot skillet, and you have an addictive, healthful, high-protein meal or snack. I especially like it for breakfast because it's so fast and easy.

This basic recipe is known, in slight variations, as socca in the South of France; farinata, cecina or panissa in Italy; karantita in Algeria (made with egg); fainá  in Argentina and Uruguay; pudla (chickpea flour crepes) in northern India; and chickpea flour omelette (or scramble if it gets messy) among vegans of the USA. Seems like everyone else in the entire world, for all of history, knew about it before I did.

Google any of the terms above and you'll find a thousand great recipes. Here's one easy way to make it for breakfast. It has as much protein as two eggs and no cholesterol.

Chickpea Flour Scramble

1/2 c chickpea flour
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c water
couple handfuls of spinach
oil for the pan

(optional: turmeric, chili powder, vegan parmesan . . . anything, really)

Put some oil in a skillet and heat it on medium high. If the spinach is frozen, steam it a couple of minutes. Mix all the other ingredients, and then stir in the spinach. Toss in hot pan. Cook a few minutes, stir, cook a few more minutes, stir a little more, cook another minute. Eat.

Felix Vallotton, The Estérel and the Bay of Cannes, 1925