Falafel
Ok, it's been ages since I've done anything here. Sorry. Don't know if anyone noticed anyway...
Anyway, I've developed a recipe from scratch, with a little development and I'm quite proud of it.
Most of the falafel recipes I've tried over the years have used whole chickpeas, either dried ones soaked or tinned and then mashed or whizzed in a whizzy whiz food processor thing.
From Ottolenghi to Anissa Helou, Claudia Roden to Greg Malouf, and I've always had trouble with them falling to pieces at the frying stage. Sometimes I've resorted to egg to bind them - inauthentic I know, but when faced with crumbling yummy and a rumbling tummy, needs must.
I've also often used those packets of dried falafel mix you can get from health food shops, supermarkets and Whole Foods. (There's a great one available from http://www.sharafsfood.co.uk/ who runs a great little cafe, Mirage, in Cheltenham.)
Reading the ingredients of some of these (though not Sam's from Sharaf's, his are special), I saw that some of these used breadcrumbs and chickpea flour rather than chickpeas. So I started experimenting...
It worked! Sort of; seasoning was off a bit, texture was a little heavy, so a few more tweaks and this where I am now with this recipe. Some of the ingredients seem a little odd, but try it, it works I think (let me know if you agree, disagree or anything-agree).
120g dried breadcrumbs; not those fine packed ones. Maybe your own chunky dried ones or some Panko ones;
40g dried onions; some are dried, fried - these might burn so I went for the dried normal ones;
160g chickpea flour; or gram flour;
1tsp bicarbonate of soda;
Seasoning; up to you and probably the magic in this dish. At a minimum, cumin, salt, pepper, probably cayenne. I've got some falafel seasoning from the spice shop in Notting Hill ("Ooh, hark at him!"). Probably a couple of teaspooons in total - have a look at some other recipes for inspiration. I think the important thing to consider here is whether you're going to use this mix straight away or store it; use now and you could add fresh parsley, coriander, garlic, etc. Use later and you'll have to stick to dried spices.
Basically mix all the stuff together (you might want to sift the chickpea flour and bicarbonate of soda to ensure they mix thoroughly and delumpify), then for every 10g of mix, add 10g of water, maybe a little more. I think 10g of mix + 10g water = 1 falafel, so scale accordingly.
Stir.
Let it stand for 10 minutes or so, then scoop into small, walnut sized lumps and shallow fry for a couple of minutes, turning, and then draining them on kitchen paper before scoffing.
You can make up a big batch if you go down the dry spice route, keep in a jar and then, it's the work on minutes to weigh, add water, let it stand and fry them.
Anyway, I've developed a recipe from scratch, with a little development and I'm quite proud of it.
Most of the falafel recipes I've tried over the years have used whole chickpeas, either dried ones soaked or tinned and then mashed or whizzed in a whizzy whiz food processor thing.
From Ottolenghi to Anissa Helou, Claudia Roden to Greg Malouf, and I've always had trouble with them falling to pieces at the frying stage. Sometimes I've resorted to egg to bind them - inauthentic I know, but when faced with crumbling yummy and a rumbling tummy, needs must.
I've also often used those packets of dried falafel mix you can get from health food shops, supermarkets and Whole Foods. (There's a great one available from http://www.sharafsfood.co.uk/ who runs a great little cafe, Mirage, in Cheltenham.)
It worked! Sort of; seasoning was off a bit, texture was a little heavy, so a few more tweaks and this where I am now with this recipe. Some of the ingredients seem a little odd, but try it, it works I think (let me know if you agree, disagree or anything-agree).
120g dried breadcrumbs; not those fine packed ones. Maybe your own chunky dried ones or some Panko ones;
40g dried onions; some are dried, fried - these might burn so I went for the dried normal ones;
160g chickpea flour; or gram flour;
1tsp bicarbonate of soda;
Seasoning; up to you and probably the magic in this dish. At a minimum, cumin, salt, pepper, probably cayenne. I've got some falafel seasoning from the spice shop in Notting Hill ("Ooh, hark at him!"). Probably a couple of teaspooons in total - have a look at some other recipes for inspiration. I think the important thing to consider here is whether you're going to use this mix straight away or store it; use now and you could add fresh parsley, coriander, garlic, etc. Use later and you'll have to stick to dried spices.
Basically mix all the stuff together (you might want to sift the chickpea flour and bicarbonate of soda to ensure they mix thoroughly and delumpify), then for every 10g of mix, add 10g of water, maybe a little more. I think 10g of mix + 10g water = 1 falafel, so scale accordingly.
Stir.
Let it stand for 10 minutes or so, then scoop into small, walnut sized lumps and shallow fry for a couple of minutes, turning, and then draining them on kitchen paper before scoffing.You can make up a big batch if you go down the dry spice route, keep in a jar and then, it's the work on minutes to weigh, add water, let it stand and fry them.
Labels: Recipe
posted by Bluebear at
8:01 pm
1 Comments:
I love your falafels, Bitch. I also had some really nice falafel recently from a stall in Spitalfields market - it seemed to have bits of apricot in. Really moist, sweet and delicious. I hadn't come across it before but maybe it's like these Sweet Moroccan Falafel.
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