Looking the flavor of old ages or just a bit too stocked up on chickpeas? Let’s taste this Falafel recipe without going overseas!

Falafel or as known in Egyptian Arabic as a “little piece of food” or “small tasty thing” is a deep-fried chickpea or broad beans ball that is filled into pita bread then drizzled with tahini-based sauces.

Although legends suggest that Falafel was eaten in Ancient Egypt, there is no written evidence supporting this claim, not to mention that the price of oil, unlike today, was prohibitively high to use it for deep frying.

Nowadays falafel is so common street food that even McDonald’s dipped their fingers into it, creating the McFalafel breakfast menu all over Egypt.

A couple of years ago, Falafel was only known to those were immersed themselves in the Mediterranean cuisine but today, falafel has grown out of the dark alleyways of culinary repression to a well known and celebrated street food across many cities of the US.

In fact, Falafel became so popular that the record for the largest falafel disc was held by the United States until Jordan took it with a 165lbs / 75kg Falafel and as of today still holding tight to that title with a 223lb / 101kg disc.

It’s worth to note that the Egyptian version uses fava beans (broad beans) while other versions including what we got to know as falafel, use chickpeas. It doesn’t really matter what’s the carrying material of the spices of herbs that are mixed into the balls tough.

What matters is that neither chickpeas nor fava beans are cooked prior to preparation because that results the dough to fall apart during heat processing. It may sound really alienating, especially for those who like to buy their chickpeas readymade that falafel uses raw, soaked ingredients to start with.

After 12 hours soaking session, the chickpeas are ground with a special grinder or in the secrecy of our own kitchen with our favorite food processor then mixed with all the things necessary to turn the paste into a delicious dish.

Parsley, scallion, garlic, cumin, and coriander are all well-loved ingredients when preparing falafel and each provide a distinctive characteristic to the dish. Apparently, falafel is one of those tasty things that naturally evolved without any animal ingredients so both, vegetarians and vegans can enjoy it without the bother of changing or substituting anything.

The only drawback of falafel is the heat processing because traditionally it requires to be deep fried and that isn’t the healthiest conscious or calorie friendly method of preparing anything edible. Luckily, we can pop them into the oven for a not so quick round of baking or rather roasting, thus getting rid of any unnecessary calories and trans fats.

Sure, opting for preparing falafel in the oven takes away the charm of deep-fried food but if we prepare a rather bigger batch then finish it off in the oven may be a much faster way than frying various batches, one after the another, slaving next to the cooktop.

Once done, falafel can be enjoyed on its own or in case, we are on an elevated calorie diet rolled into pita bread with some vegetables and then soaked with a bit of Thani sauce or in lack of that whatever sauce comes to our mind like tzatziki or Ranch dressing.

Ingredients

3 cups / 500g Dry chickpeas
1 teaspoon / 3g Black pepper
1 teaspoon / 2g Cumin (ground)
1 teaspoon / 1.5g Coriander (ground)
⅓ cup / 15g Dill (fresh)
½ cup / 30g Parsley (fresh)
1½ cup / 25g Cilantro (fresh)
½ medium / 75g Onion
7 cloves / 21g Garlic
3 teaspoon / 15g Salt
2 tablespoon / 15g Sesame seed
Oil for frying

How to make Falafel

Rinse chickpeas under running water then soak them for at least 12 hours. Check instructions on packaging for specific types.
Drain the water.
If whole black pepper, cumin and coriander is used, as we should if we are after intense flavors, grind them.
Cut the fresh dill, parsley and cilantro leaves up.
Add drained chick peas, onion, garlic and salt into a food processor and run it until all the ingredients are well combined. Do it in batches if necessary.
Finish up by adding the ground up spices and the chopped green leaves too.
Cool the paste for easier handling in the fridge for an hour. To let the flavors develop, we can keep the falafel paste in the fridge overnight too.
Mix in optional sesame seeds then spoon out the mixture to desired size. Roll them into a balls with wet hands.
Fill a saucepan with oil so the balls are covered when placed in. Heat oil to medium high then add the falafel balls.
Fry falafel until crisp and browned on the outside, about 10 minutes.
Dry them off in a colander.