Falafel: Not Full Awful!

That title undersells it. It was the best pun I could come up with.  Falafel is excellent and, more or less, easy to make! 

Falafel, for the uninitiated, are fried balls of chickpea paste.  Sometimes you will see them referred to as “Chickpea fritters” in an effort to mollify the Toby Keith-types.
This renaming effort reminds me of a Simpson’s clip, which of course is not available as video online. 

Helen: Hmm, Pita.  Well, I don't know about food from the Middle East.
         Isn't that whole area a little iffy?
Hostess: [laughs]  Hey, I'm no geographer.  You and I -- why don't we
         call it pocket bread, huh?
  Maude: [reading the ingredients list]  Umm, what's tahini?
Hostess: Flavor sauce.
   Edna: And falafel?
Hostess: Crunch patties.
  Helen: So, we'd be selling foreign...
Hostess: Specialty foods.  Here, try a Ben Franklin.

So falafel has been on our culinary bucket list for a little while.  We ended up trying this recipe from Emeril Lagasse. 

 Why wouldn’t you go with a Cajun dude’s falafel recipe?  But seriously, most of the recipes online are 

pretty similar.  One difference you’ll see (and is present in the above-linked recipe) is that some falafel 

recipes call for a mix of chickpeas and fava beans and some recipes are pure chickpea.  It turns out

 that falafel is very popular in Israel, but many Israelis suffer from “Favism” or an inability on a genetic 

level to process fava bean protein.  So they go 100% chickpea.  So did we!

One of the only hurdles of making falafel is that you should NOT use canned chickpeas.  You need to buy dried (we found them at Whole Foods)  and then soak them for about a day.  The rehydrated beans have a much better (i.e. firmer) texture.


After soaking the beans should triple in size.





Get the beans good and dry.  Seems redundant, right?

Apres le soaking, le chopping.




Onion and garlic, natch.  Chez Venza style: always double the garlic and/or hot pepper called for in a recipe.



Lot of fresh parsley and cilantro.  I’ve also seen mint in recipes.






All of the spices and ingredients go into “that wonderful machine,” as Jacques Pepin calls it.



Process, my pretties.  Process!



Emeril calls for 1.5-2 tablespoon patties.  Luckily, we have a 1/8th cup measuring scoop, which equals 2 tablespoons.  I used that to scoop the mixture, and tried not to manhandle it too much.  You don’t want them to be too dense.  At this point, I refrigerated them a while to help them firm up.



350° oil.  You need a fry thermometer and a vessel to fry in.  Don’t be afraid.



The recipes says 2.5 minutes, which is about right. But you can also eyeball it some.  Remember, there is no meat in this so you don’t need to be scared about doneness.  Only texture.



Beautiful, light, and tasty.  Emeril’s recipe, strangely enough, needs more salt.  BAM! Also, maybe some pepper flake.



Nummy num num.  We served them on pita with cucumber, tomato, arugula, hot sauce, and, instead of tahini, we used tzatziki.  We did this because tahini can be hard to find and tzatziki is delicious.  Next time, however, we’re getting the tahini!