Falafel

Falafel is a middle eastern dish. It is a deep fried lentil fritter, similar to the masala vada made in southern part of India. Falafel is a popular street food/fast food in the middle eastern countries, also used a great substitute for the meat in the warps. Made these using raw soaked garbanzo beans which is the traditional way of making them.

There is soaked frozen garbanzo beans in my freezer always, so it is very easy to whip this up even on a week night. This week has been crazy cold here and also been raining mostly. What better than deep fried food can we eat during the weather? 🙂 Pairing the deep fried food with a hot cup of chai is YUM!!!. I ended up making this adapted recipe 2 times in this week.

Falafel comes in handy for me for many dishes. Below are a few I use them for
– serve as an appetizer, pair falafel with hummus and yogurt dip.
– use as a stuffing in the pita bread along with yogurt sauce, cucumber salad and gobi shawarma
– add it to the Burmese style samosa soup for texture and taste.
– as it is similar to masala vada, I use it in making vada curry

Love this recipe as I get to use this in so many dishes.

Ingredients

dry (un-soaked) garbanzo beans 1 cup
onion 1 medium, diced
cumin seeds 1 tsp
garlic 3 cloves
coriander leaves 1/4 cup
coriander powder 1 tsp
pepper powder 1/4 tsp
red chili powder 1/4 tsp
salt as per taste
all purpose flour 1 tbsp
oil for deep frying

note: soaking 1 cup dry beans will yield around 3 cups of soaked beans

Method

Wash the dry garbanzo beans and soak them overnight.
Drain and rinse using a colander and set aside.
Grind soaked garbanzo beans, cumin seeds, coriander powder, red chili powder, onion, garlic, coriander leaves and flour in to a coarse mixture without adding water.
Heat oil in a deep pan just enough to immerse half of the falafel.
Make small balls of the coarse mixture and drop if carefully in hot oil (note: they should not fall apart, can add a lil more AFP to help bind if it is falling apart).
Deep fry them in medium-low flame till golden brown.
Remove from oil and drain on a paper towel.
Ready to be served.

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