If you appreciate bold flavors in the kitchen, we’re sure you’re going to love Falafel. Falafels are small patties made of chickpeas, or both chickpeas and lima beans, seasoned with herbs and fried until crispy. While they are a completely vegetarian and even vegan dish, meat lovers love them too, because let’s be honest who doesn’t love deep fried food?
This delicious dish comes from the Middle East, but its precise origin is a bit unclear. Many countries claim to have invented it, however Egypt is the one most referenced one, especially because they have actual historic documents that mention falafel at the end of the 19th century.
To this day, it’s an incredibly popular dish in the region. Families are used to eating it regularly, and it’s also found at plenty of street carts. It’s often served in a pita with tahini or along with rice and salads making it a very convenient, plant-powered option. And now, you can learn how to make it too.
A couple of things worth mentioning before jumping into the recipe are:
Make sure that your ingredients are as fresh as possible. Don’t use canned chickpeas or the texture will be completely off. Same for the herbs, onion and garlic – don’t substitute them with powdered spices.
You can add more or less of each ingredient listed in the recipe to adjust it to your taste buds. Falafel can have a pretty strong flavor, and can sometimes be spicy too, so you can adjust this for yourself or for the kids at home. However, keep an eye on the texture, it should still be able to come together enough to be deep fried.
You can make it ahead and freeze for a future use. If you’re cooking for yourself, the recipe yields more than you need, but you can just freeze the rest of the uncooked patties for the future.
Ingredients
- Chickpeas, 2 cups – after being soaked.
- Lima beans, fresh 1 ½ cups
- Ground bread, ½ cup
- Flour ¼ cup
- Garlic, 2-4
- Onion, quartered
- Parsley, 1/2 cup
- Coriander, 1 cup
- Coriander powder, about 3 tbs
- Pepper, to taste
- Cumin, 2 tbs
- Zuma, about 1tbs
- Baharat, about 1tbs
- Baking powder, ½ tbs
Instructions
Soak, overnight, your chickpeas and clean your fresh lima beans. Thoroughly dry your chickpeas and process in a food processor along with the lima beans. Transfer to a bowl.
In the same processor, without washing it, add the onion, parsley, and garlic. Process until pasty, not liquid. Add to the bowl with the chickpeas and the lima beans. Add salt to taste, coriander powder. Mix by hand, then add the cumin, zumet, baharat and baking powder. Mix, then add a bit of pepper, bread and flower, and continue mixing.
In a cooking pot, add frying oil and heat until hot. While it heats, make your falafel fix into small balls, then flatten with your hands until they are about 1 cm thick. Add your falafels to the oil and fry until brown -yes, not golden brown, actual brown… but not black.
Serve with tzatziki, hummus, rice, veggies or in a pita.
