Steve’s Baked Falafel Recipe

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Been awhile since I posted on cooking and I want to get back into the groove!

OK I love good falafel, but I’m not big on the whole “fried” thing – both for health, the effort that takes, and because often it’s overdone and you end up with carbon lumps. So I did some research, tweaked a bit, and came up with these – baked falafel!

They’re mild – if you want to jack them up try to double the lemon juice and/or salt.  You may also want to add some sesame seeds if you like those.

As for serving, I like them by hand, but they’re also great stuffed in a pita.  You can freeze them pretty easily – just let them cook first.

The secret, by the way, is the chickpea flour (as a binder) and hand-shaping them to be flat so they cook right.

Makes about  18-22 patties, or 4-5 meal servings.

Ingredients

  • 2 14.5 oz cans of cooked chickpeas (about 6-7 cups)
  • 1 tbsp crushed garlic (about 3 cloves)
  • 2 Tbsp dried parsley
  • 2 Tbsp dried cilantro or chives
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • ¼ cup chickpea flour
  1. Preheat oven to 420.  Place baking paper on a cookie tray (you can also use some oil but it kind of defeats the purpose)
  2. Mix everything but the lemon juice and chickpea flour in a large bowl.
  3. Add lemon juice.
  4. Mash the mixture until chickpeas are mostly broken up and it’s a bit like a dough.
  5. Stir in chickpea flour until it’s blended into the “dough”
  6. Using your hand take a scoop of dough, about 2 tbsp at a time, form into patties, place on cookie tray. Make sure they’re flattened so they cook well.
  7. Cook for 25 minutes.  Patties will brown a bit on the top and be solid.
  8. Flip patties over and cook another 25 minutes.
  9. Remove and serve.

 

– Steve