Falafel Batter.
If I might paraphrase (500) Days of Summer: This is a story of boy meets chickpeas. But you should know up front – this is not a dinner story.
On a recent weekend, my beautiful wife and I were dining out and she mentioned that she had a craving for falafel. I love good Mediterranean food – you all have seen my write-up of the Cava Mezze Grill in Tysons Corner Center, and Plaka Grill in Vienna is another favorite among my friends at church. And any longtime resident of the area has to have tried out one of the many Lebanese Taverna locations in the DC region. For the uninitiated, though, falafel is a fried entrée made of ground chickpeas and spices, usually served with hummus or tzatziki sauce on a pita.
Falafel Balls
I first dug up a recipe. A few looks around the Web found any number of falafel recipes, but as I always place a premium on simplicity, I started with Mark Bittman’s recipe. But Bittman called for dried chickpeas, and the shelves at my local Giant were bare. They had plenty of dried red, pinto, and black beans (perfect for the next time I’m in a chili cookoff!) but no chickpeas. Unfortunately, I think that’s where I first went wrong.
A Bad Frying Attempt.
I bought a 29-oz can of Goya chickpeas, drained them, and minced them in my food processor in batches. I also chopped the onion, garlic, spices, and parsley and tossed all of that into the chickpea mixture with the last couple of ingredients. I stirred the mixture together into batter, and I thought I was on the right track. I even tossed in a tablespoon of flour, a tip that I saw in a number of recipes to keep the batter together as it fries.
I pulled out a disher and scooped out a batch of falafel balls. Most recipes I saw suggest forming them into ping-pong ball-sized fritters, which I thought would work well. I heated a saucepan with vegetable oil to 350 degrees, and once it hit temperature, I dropped two fritters in.
Hot Oven Couldn't Help.
And that is where my errors caught up with me. The oil started bubbling furiously, as it usually will do when frying. But when I dropped a spider into the oil to fish out the falafel, the batter had completely disintegrated. And that was when I knew that we weren’t having falafel for dinner that night.
I’m not sure if it was the canned chickpeas that did it, or the fact that my food processor is small enough that I had to chop everything in batches. I may have over-minced the chickpeas, or it may have been that they were so wet that they wouldn’t stick together enough when faced with hot oil. In any case, the oil was ruined and I scorched my saucepan. I’ll have to try again sometime soon.
All was not lost, however – I had one final thought before I gave up. I dropped a few falafel balls onto a roasting pan and set them in a blazing hot oven for about 20 minutes, hoping that the dry heat might achieve something like the hot oil’s crisping effect. Alas – while the outsides browned, the insides remained decidedly moist, and my experiment had truly failed.
Let me know in the comments if you try out a falafel recipe more successfully than I did, or if you have any thoughts on what went wrong for me!
Falafel
Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “Recipe of the Day,” February 12, 2008
1 29 oz can chickpeas
2 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 tsp coriander
1 tbsp cumin
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup parsley leaves
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
1 tbsp lemon juice
Frying oil
Drain chickpeas. Mince all ingredients except frying oil in your food processor, working in batches if necessary. Adjust seasoning and spices to taste once the batter comes together. Add a tablespoon or two of flour if the batter is too wet to form.
Heat the oil to 350 degrees. Fry falafel balls for about five minutes. Serve on a heated pita with hummus, tzatziki, and other toppings as desired.
-HML
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-JAY
One Response
Exact same thing happened to me last Sunday. I used a pressure cooker to cook the beans, followed the recipe to the letter – and they just dissolved in the 350 deg oil. I also baked what was left but was not the same. Have made them before, with only a few minor issues.