Falafel
Here's the list of ingredients:
- Half a cup of dried chickpeas
- Half a cup of dried fava beans
- A table spoon each of cumin, coriander seed, and cayenne pepper
- A pinch of salt and black pepper, to taste
- A small tomato, sliced
- A bit of romaine lettuce, sliced
- A few cloves of garlic, minced
- A small handful of parsley, chopped
- A mixture of fine bread crumbs and some flour (the amount will vary)
- A white onion, chopped
This stuff is pretty easy to make. Begin by soaking your chickpeas and fava beans over night, until tender. Drain off all of the water. Add it to a food processor, and blitz until it has the consistency of bread crumbs. Add the ground spice mixture (I use a mortar and pestle, but you can use a small grinder or use pre-ground spices. It won't be as fresh in the latter case). Add in the garlic, the onion, and the parsely. Blitz until everything is combined.
The mixture should feel dry, but able to hold a shape if you squeeze it. If it is too wet, add some of the bread crumbs and flour. If it's to dry, you can add a teaspoon or so of water and give it whiz again.
At this point, you're basically done. See? Told you it was easy. You can use it as a spread on a sandwich with the lettuce, tomato, and turnip, or you can roll it into one inch diameter balls and either fry it in some oil until crispy, or do what I do and bake and broil them in a 350F oven for 15 minutes. They will get a crunchy outer shell, and you won't have oil to clean up (or the extra fat).
If you baked them, put them in a bowl on a bed of romaine lettuce, and garnish with the tomatoes and turnip slices. Falafel is often served with a side dish of hummus, tabouleh, or fattouche salad. You can find recipes for all of those things right here on the site, too. In this case, I topped it with a big dollop of baba ghanoush, a roasted eggplant dressing.
