Falafel

The chickpeas are soaked raw and never cooked before grinding, which is the one rule that cannot be broken.

Vegan.

Ingredients

the mixture

• 400 g dried chickpeas, soaked 18 hours
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 6 cloves garlic
• a large bunch of parsley
• a large bunch of coriander
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

to fry

• 1.5 litres sunflower oil

to serve

• flatbread, tahini sauce, pickles, tomato

Method

1. THE CHICKPEAS ARE SOAKED RAW AND NEVER COOKED BEFORE GRINDING. This is the one rule that cannot be broken and it is why most home falafel fails. Dried chickpeas are soaked eighteen hours until they have trebled and a fingernail splits them, then drained, dried and ground RAW. The starch in a raw soaked chickpea is what binds the mixture and then sets in the fryer into a crisp shell with a light, almost fluffy inside. Cooked or tinned chickpeas have had that starch gelatinised already: the mixture is a wet paste, it needs flour or egg to hold together at all, and it either disintegrates in the oil or fries into something dense and heavy. There is no shortcut and no substitute.
2. THEY ARE GROUND, NOT PUREED, AND THE TEXTURE IS LIKE DAMP COUSCOUS. Pulsed in a processor in short bursts, scraping down, until the mixture holds together when squeezed in the fist but is still visibly granular. Pureed smooth it fries dense and pasty; too coarse and it falls apart.
3. THE BICARBONATE GOES IN AT THE VERY LAST MOMENT. A teaspoon, stirred through immediately before frying. It reacts on contact with the hot oil and is what makes the inside light rather than solid. Mixed in half an hour early it has spent itself before the first ball goes in.
4. THE MIXTURE IS CHILLED AND THE HERBS ARE DRY. An hour in the fridge firms it so it can be shaped, and any water on the parsley and coriander makes it slack. Wet mixture is the second reason falafel breaks up in the pan.
5. THEY ARE DEEP-FRIED SUBMERGED AT 170°C AND NOT MOVED AT FIRST. Lowered in on a slotted spoon and left thirty seconds before being touched, so the shell sets. Four to five minutes to deep brown. Poked early, they split.
6. A TEST ONE GOES IN FIRST, ALWAYS. One ball, before shaping the rest. If it breaks up, the mixture needs another pulse or ten minutes more in the fridge -- which is a two-minute fix before shaping forty, and unrecoverable after.
7. The chickpeas soaked 18 HOURS in plenty of cold water, then DRAINED and spread out to dry.
8. The onion, garlic, parsley and coriander pulsed, then the RAW chickpeas added with the cumin, ground coriander, cayenne and salt.
9. PULSED IN SHORT BURSTS, scraping down, to the texture of DAMP COUSCOUS -- holds when squeezed, still granular.
10. Covered and CHILLED 1 HOUR.
11. The oil heated to 170°C.
12. The bicarbonate and sesame seeds stirred through AT THE LAST MOMENT.
13. ONE TEST BALL fried first. If it breaks up, the mixture is pulsed again or chilled longer.
14. The rest shaped into balls or patties and DEEP-FRIED SUBMERGED, a few at a time, LEFT UNTOUCHED 30 SECONDS, then 4 to 5 MINUTES to deep brown.
15. Drained on paper.
16. TESTED: broken open, the inside should be green and light rather than dense and wet.
17. Eaten at once in flatbread with tahini sauce and pickles.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Lebanon · All recipes