Necci
Necci (pronounced “neh-chee”) are an ancient food — imagine the sweet, nutty lovechild of tortillas and crepes — that’s been made for centuries in mountain regions of Italy and Corsica. In Italy today, they are served most often as a dessert filled with sweetened ricotta cheese. But traditionally, they were “the bread of the mountains”, filled with stews, meat, salami, cheese, etc. We find you can put pretty much anything good (savory or sweet) in necci, and it’s great.
You can see necci being made and enjoyed on our IG here.
You can make a version in a skillet, but we highly recommend picking up a pair of these carbon-steel pans, made for Breadtree by our neighbors at Wick’s Forge here in Salem NY.
Ingredients:
Makes necci for two. Multiply for more people.
2 cups chestnut fine flour
1 tsp salt
1 egg (if your necci aren’t holding together, add another egg)
2.5-3 cups cold water
Olive oil, hickory oil, avocado oil etc. for greasing the pans.
Steps:
Mix everything except the oil together in a bowl. You should have a loose, fluid batter.
Heat up both pans over medium-high heat (on two burners).
Put a little bit of oil in a small dish.
When the pans are starting to smoke, use a pastry brush (or if you prefer, cut a potato in half and stick it on a fork with the flat side down) to brush oil on the cooking face of each pan.
Ladle between 2-3 tbsp of batter on the middle of one pan, and put the other pan down on top with the handles aligned.
After about 30 seconds, flip the pair of pans over together. After 30 seconds on the second side, you should be close to done. You can always check how finished each side is by flipping the pair of pans and lifting the top one (which was, until moments ago, the bottom one).