Something that is very appreciated by vegetarians is falafel. We figured it could not be difficult to make your own, and it wasn’t!
Falafel has a lot of flavour and it can be eaten in so many ways. Today we chose to eat some green lentils with our falafel and we made a yoghurt sauce. The falafel was a bit spicy so the fresh youghurt sauce was perfect to eat with it.
Ingredients Serves 4
Cooking time: 1 hr
- 230 g chickpeas (1 tin)
- 2 tsp fresh coriander
- 2 tsp fresh parsley
- half an onion
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp chili flakes (take 0.5 tsp if you don’t want it too spicy)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3-4 tbs flour (to make the recipe gluten-free, use corn flour or bulgur instead)
- sunflower oil for frying
- 200 ml yoghurt
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp tahini paste
- salt
- pepper
- Put the chick peas, onion, garlic, parsley, coriander, cumin, chili flakes and salt in a food processor.
- Mix until blended but don’t let it turn into puree.
- Add the flour and baking powder and blend again.
- Form the mix into 12 equally-sized balls.
- The mix should not stick to your hands. If it does, add a little bit more flour.
- Cover the balls with cling film and refrigerate for 30 mins.
- Heat the oil in a saucepan. You need enough oil to just cover the top of the falafel, so about 5 cm.
- Fry 4 balls at a time. (You can do more if you have a larger saucepan.) They should cook for 3-5 mins, until browned. (Roll them over regularly if the oil doesn’t cover them.)
- Take out the falafel and place them on a plate on some kitchen paper, and cook the remaining falafel.
- Make a quick dipping sauce:
- Mix 200 ml yoghurt with 1 tsp tahini paste.
- Add 1 tsp of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve 3 balls of falafel with the dipping sauce.
- Serve with your choice of other food. We had some lentils and red onion to eat with our falafel, but you can have them with anything you prefer: bread, rice, lentils, or just some salad.
- Enjoy!
Looks good! Minus for the frying, maybe you could just fry them in a regular stekpanna like meatballs…
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True, Lisa. That’s very possible you probably need more flour though, so they don’t fall apart.
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