‘Ome Made Falafel

 

Falafel are great… or can be if they’re made right! The thing is you need to put bags of flavour in there. You need serious amounts of garlic, lemon juice, pepper and salt. And then of course there’s the spices. For me it has to be heavy on the cumin, probably my favourite spice and a little paprika and ginger help give an extra zing to the proceedings. A good handful of fresh herbs give the finishing touch.

Falafel are surprisingly easy to make. The main ingredient, chickpeas, are incredibly cheap too!

I like to have Falafel just as they are accompanied by a nice salad, maybe some Tabbouleh and lashings of Tzatziki Oops, I’m beginning to sound like a vegetarian!

Once cooked they can also be warmed in a sauce, a nice rich tomato sauce works well. They’re almost like a vegetarian version of a meatballs.

So here’s a recipe you can follow to make your own. It uses dried chickpeas which have to be soaked overnight. I’m sure if you wanted you could cheat and use tinned, if you do you’ll want about double the amount of dried.

‘Ome Made Falafel

You will need:

  • 500g dried chickpeas
  • 6 cloves garlic finely chopped
  • 1 medium onion finely chopped
  • 3 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon chilli
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon dried mint
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

Method.

Soak the chickpeas overnight. Drain and rinse the chickpeas then grind to a course pulp in a food processor.

Mix in all the other ingredients using your hands to really work the mixture together.

Form into 4cm balls and place on greaseproof paper on a tray in a single layer.

To cook the Falafel are best deep fried or shallow fried and then finished off in an oven.If deep frying the oil wants to be around 160°C so that they will cook through without the outside getting too well done Take the Falafel out of the oil when they are firmed up and just starting to colour. The Falafel can be par cooked like this and then cooled and refrigerated or frozen. The Falafel can then just be popped into an oven to finish cooking.

Alternatively the Falafel can just be deep or shallow fried.

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