Panelle Crocche appears as a signature dish in 1 Italy cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Panelle e Crocche · Palermo
Panelle are thin chickpea-flour fritters; crocche di patate are mashed-potato croquettes. Together they fill a sesame vastedda bun for the Palermitan working lunch sandwich.
Panelle trace to Arab Sicily; chickpea flour was a Maghrebi staple that entered Sicilian cooking after the 9th-century conquest. The technique is to cook a thick chickpea-flour porridge with water and salt, spread it thin on a marble slab to set, then cut into squares and deep-fry until crisp at the edges. The crocche (potato croquettes) emerged as a companion in the 19th century and were always sold from the same friggitorie counters. The form survives at every Ballaro, Capo and Vucciria street counter. The vastedda roll-stuffed sandwich format is the canonical late-morning Palermitan street meal; Friggitoria Chiluzzo and Nni Franco u' Vastiddaru are the reference counters.
Where to eat in Palermo:
- Friggitoria Chiluzzo
- Panelle e Crocche del Ballaro
- Antica Focacceria San Francesco