It's been about seven years since I had my first taste of falafel. At the time I was living in my home state of Rhode Island, and studying at Roger Williams University. My friends and I took a trip to Thayer Street in Providence, because someone was looking to get a piercing. Thayer Street is surrounded by the campuses (campi?) of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design -- the scene is cool and trendy, and every shop on the street is worthy of checking out. After the piercing event, we grabbed fabulous falafel wraps at
East Side Pockets. For about five bucks, this wrap was jam packed with falafel, lettuce, tomatoes, and a perfect dill-yogurt sauce. I was hooked.
Since then, I've tried a few different ways of making falafel. I tried a boxed mix with success, but can no longer use that on account of it containing wheat flour. Darn. That means I can't get it in restaurants, like
The Spartan Grill. Most folks use wheat flour to hold the garbanzo bean and veggie blend together.
But, when the boxed method doesn't work, and you're feeling like a challange, making things from scratch opens the door to creativity. While I made some successful falafel, they just didn't taste the same. Something was missing. I tried a variety of spices, but couldn't match the flavor.
Then, while reading
A Hungry Spoon's version of falafel, I realized what I was missing.
Cumin.
Cumin is a pretty lovely spice. It helps our bellies to digest, our kidneys and liver to process and detoxify, and even has a high iron content. How could I overlook adding this spice to my falafel?
So, on Valentine's Day, I made some falafel with the magic addition of cumin. And they were perfect.
Perfect Falafel
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups garbanzo beans, pre-cooked, or one can of garbanzo beans
- 1/4 large red onion, chopped finely
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- a pinch of cayenne pepper depending on your cayenne tollerance, start small -- you can always add more, but can't take it away!
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 white button mushrooms, chopped finely
- 1/2 cup rice flour
Start off by turning your oven onto 375 degrees and greasing a baking sheet with olive oil. Put all the ingredients, except for the rice flour into a food processor, and set it on pulse a few times -- but wait! Not too much! We want the chickpeas to be chopped into small pieces, but not blended up like hummus. If you only have a blender, put the onions, mushrooms, garlic, and spices on the bottom and the chickpeas on top. Use the ice crusher setting or pulse until it reaches the desired consistency. Here comes the fun and slightly messy part: rub some flour on your hands, and shape the future falafel mixture into balls about 2 1/2 inches in diamater, adding flour as you go to make sure things stick together. This recipe should make 6-7 falafel balls.
Stick these lovely babies into the oven for about 15 minutes. If you remember, turn them over somewhere in the middle. Serve with a blend of yogurt and dill, hummus, or even clash cultures by drizzling it with tomato sauce.
I've already made these twice this week, and just prepared a huge batch of chickpeas for more!
