Borlengo

A batter spread paper-thin in a hot pan and cooked until it is a crisp sheet.

Pork, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains parmesan whose rennet the source does not name, pork.

Ingredients

• 150 g plain flour
• 700 ml water
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 80 g lardo or pancetta, chopped to a paste
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• a sprig of rosemary, chopped
• 80 g parmesan, grated

Method

1. Whisk the flour, water, egg and salt into a batter and leave it 30 minutes. IT IS MEANT TO BE ALMOST WATER — 700 ml to 150 g of flour, far thinner than a pancake batter. That is what lets it spread to a sheet you can see light through.
2. Pound the lardo, garlic and rosemary to a paste.
3. Heat a wide flat pan until a drop of water skitters. Ladle in a little batter and immediately tilt and swirl the pan so it runs to the very edges.
4. Cook 2 minutes until the edges lift and the underside is lacy and set, then flip and give it 1 minute.
5. Smear the lardo paste over one half while it is still in the pan, scatter parmesan, and fold it into quarters.
6. Eat it straight away, with your hands. It goes from crisp to leathery within a couple of minutes of leaving the heat, which is why these are made one at a time and handed over as they come.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes