(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
- Preheat oven to 420. Place baking paper on a cookie tray (you can also use some oil but it kind of defeats the purpose)
- Mix everything but the lemon juice and chickpea flour in a large bowl.
- Add lemon juice.
- Mash the mixture until chickpeas are mostly broken up and it’s a bit like a dough.
- Stir in chickpea flour until it’s blended into the “dough”
- 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.
- Cook for 25 minutes. Patties will brown a bit on the top and be solid.
- Flip patties over and cook another 25 minutes.
- Remove and serve.
– Steve